The universe is about to fit in your pocket. Hello Games will release No Man’s Sky on iPhone and iPad on October 28, according to Gematsu, and the iOS version can be downloaded and started for free before you decide to buy.
The App Store listing describes it as try before you buy. You can play the beginning of the game at no cost, and a one-time purchase unlocks the full game, including the decade of free updates Hello Games has shipped since 2016. Those updates include Foundation, NEXT, Beyond, Expeditions and Frontiers, among many others.
Built for touch, not cut down
The iOS launch folds in every expansion to date, so new players start with the same feature set as longtime travelers on console and PC.
Studio head Sean Murray laid out the pitch in an iOS deep-dive post on October 12. The mobile version has been rebuilt for touch, and it also supports controllers and mouse and keyboard. It runs on iPhone 11 and newer, uses Apple’s MetalFX upscaling, supports M-series chips, and is roughly a 4GB download. Murray’s message was that this is the whole game, with console-quality graphics, rather than a spin-off.
That small install size is the eye-catcher. No Man’s Sky builds its planets procedurally instead of storing them, which helps explain how a game with this much content can squeeze onto a phone. It also means iOS players get the same galaxy everyone else is exploring, where you explore, trade, fight and survive across a procedurally generated universe.
No Man’s Sky is already available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC through Steam and the Microsoft Store. iOS becomes the next stop on one of gaming’s longest comeback stories.
Premium console games keep finding their way to phones. Just this week RCG covered Sifu landing on iOS and Android, and No Man’s Sky’s free opening should make it an easy one to sample when it unlocks later this month.
