Mobile gaming has had this sort of taboo around it for as long as it has existed. Most of the games on there are pure slop and, more often than not, pay-to-win fakery and gachas that provide very little in terms of gameplay but demand a heck of a lot of cash from you, the player.
But with the evolution of modern mobile chips, the possibilities have improved massively, with modern phones able to support actual AAA-level games without breaking a sweat. As such, companies like Apple have been putting in the work to bring popular titles onto its mobile platforms, and No Man’s Sky is just the latest major addition.
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As confirmed by Hello Games’ Sean Murray on YouTube, Hello Games has been working on an iOS port of No Man’s Sky for about three years now and added that it’s genuinely incredible to have this massive universe fit right in your pocket. “I don’t think people realize how powerful these devices are,” he said, explaining that the iOS version of the game implements console quality on a mobile platform.
“We support touch, we support controllers, even mouse and keyboard,” Murray explained.
He said that the “touch controls feel best in class” no matter if the player is on the ground or up in space. “[It] feels quick and so natural in the UI. [No Man’s Sky is] such a natural fit on phone.”
“From day one, new players are benefiting from now 10 years of updates. Just these huge additions,” Murray said, and announced that it will be “free to try at launch.” From the video embedded above, it seems these new M chips found in iPhones and iPads are so exceptionally powerful and power-efficient that the graphics are quite high-fidelity while maintaining a smooth framerate. If you told me 10 or 15 years ago that we’d be playing AAA or content-packed games on phones, I would’ve thought you were delusional, but here we are. This is where we’re at.
No Man’s Sky drops on iOS on Oct. 28.
