No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games was one of many to be adversely affected when floodwaters spread across the UK town of Guildford on Christmas Eve 2013. In studio founder Sean Murray’s own words, the studio lost “all our PCs, laptops, equipment, furniture, dev-kits, work in the blink of an eye.” Even worse, Hello Games’ insurer (and other local insurers, it seems) won’t be covering the damages.
It’s a terrible situation for this talented team, though they’ve bounced back quickly. Joe Danger Infinity arrived in Apple’s App Store on schedule, one year after Joe Danger Touch introduced the studio’s series to mobile gamers. And hey, it’s great! What’s more, Murray addressed worries that the flooding might cause a delay in development on its ambitious, procedurally generated space sim No Man’s Sky, claiming: “We won’t let that happen!”
Murray’s refreshingly upbeat post addresses the flood and what it means for the team’s efforts moving forward directly, in a Q&A format. In terms of the news-y bullet points, here’s what you want to know: No Man’s Sky is still on track, Kickstarter isn’t being considered as an option “right now,” and the team is operating at “full speed” from a temporary location.
You should go follow the link up above and read everything, but Murray’s response to the question of whether Hello Games is going to be okay paints a clear, encouraging picture:
“What’s happened sucks. It sucks to see years of concept art floating in muddy water, it sucks to lose so much so quickly (Christmas or not). When we moved into this office it was a wrecked warehouse, and we did it up real nice. It isn’t some anonymous building to us, and it literally broke my heart to watch what happened. If you’ve been robbed (or flooded), you probably know how it feels. From the outside it might make us seem fragile as a company, but I promise we’re strong and I hope we’ll come out of this stronger.”
We look forward to seeing more on No Man’s Sky and other Hello efforts in the coming months.
