Starting August 20, you can download one of the best-looking games on Nintendo Switch 2 and pay nothing for it.
Nintendo UK confirmed on its official Twitter/X profile that No Man’s Sky is getting a new game trial, and the terms are unusually generous. No progress cap. No arbitrary wall two hours in. The offer runs until August 26, which is enough runway to see most of what the game holds right now.
The trial covers both the original Nintendo Switch and the Switch 2. If you’re on the newer machine, you get the upgraded version built to take advantage of the improved hardware.
A decade of digging out of a hole
The timing isn’t accidental. No Man’s Sky is celebrating its tenth anniversary, and that decade of development is one of the most remarkable turnarounds in video game history.
Rewind to 2016. At launch, No Man’s Sky was widely considered one of the greatest disappointments gaming had produced. The gap between what players expected and what they got became its own genre of internet argument.
Then Hello Games did the unfashionable thing and kept working. Update after update after update. The game that exists today sits far beyond even the loftiest expectations anyone had for it back then.
Sean Murray says there’s more coming
The free period lands ahead of a final major update, tentatively titled Cosmos. Details are thin so far, but Hello Games lead Sean Murray shared a brief statement on where the studio has been and where it’s headed.
“Voyagers released last year saw more players than we’ve had since launch… and still, all these years later players have explored less than 1% of the planets in No Man’s Sky. In a similar way our small team feels we have a lot left to explore in what No Man’s Sky can be. In the background we are busy cooking on our next game Light No Fire, and big things for the future of No Man’s Sky, with the tease of our upcoming update titled Cosmos. More will follow!” Murray said.
Less than 1% of the planets. Ten years in. That number does more work than any marketing beat ever could.
Why the Switch 2 keeps collecting these
The original Switch changed the proverbial game when it arrived. The Switch 2 picked up that momentum and ran with it, and the library has grown to the point where it’s probably the most compelling piece of gaming hardware around.
Older games shoring up the back catalog helped cement that. But the steady arrival of third-party titles is what opened the ecosystem to people who weren’t willing to take the leap before. No Man’s Sky is one of the very best examples of that second category, which makes a no-cost week with it an easy yes.
And then there’s the Palworld thing
Social media has been abuzz about a potential collaboration between No Man’s Sky and creature collecting giant Palworld, with both games publicly chatting about the possibility.
We’ll have to wait and see how that shakes out. In the meantime, there are worse ways to spend the back half of August than free on a Switch 2.
Ten years ago this game was a punchline. On August 20 it’s a free download you’ll probably end up buying.
