After a 10-year redemption arc, No Man’s Sky is coming to the iPhone and iPad

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Just over 10 years after its initial release, space exploration and survival crafting gameNo Man’s Skyis making its way to the iPhone and iPad, Apple and developer Hello Games announced today.

It will run on devices as far back as the iPhone 11 and the third-generation iPad Air.No Man’s Skymight not have the most cutting-edge AAA graphics (though they’re still strong, and they’ve come a long way since launch via updates), but the game’s uncommon method of generating galaxies of incomprehensible scale on device consistently for all players from a single-seed happening on a phone is remarkable for those of us who remember phones performing far behind consoles or desktop PCs.

This version of the game includes all of the content and systems updates to the game that have been added over the years—the expansions that famously took the game from a rocky launch reception to a widely beloved redemption story.

There are a couple of compromises, though, and it’s similar to what we saw withNo Man’s Skyon the Nintendo Switch. Hello Games says the ability to build and explore player-made planetary settlements is limited to the iPhone 15 Pro and later, and multiplayer is not supported on any iOS device. “We are excited to see player feedback on iOS, and will support it appropriately based on how many folks are playing,” the companysays, leaving the door open to perhaps not supporting all future content updates if the player base isn’t there to justify it.

In addition to touch controls (which actually ought to be a good fit for a menu-heavy game like this), the iPhone version supports game controllers and casting to a TV, while the iPad version supports both of those things, plus mouse and keyboard input.

Hello Games has been working on the iOS version for three years. It also recently released a well-received macOS port of the game.

No Man’s Sky’s iOS port is part of what Apple is billing “indie games week,” which includes a few other titles of note, like the cat exploration gameLittle Kitty, Big City, and strategy game9 Kings.

While the other indie titles in Apple’s push have already started rolling out,No Man’s Skywill be a bit still: It will launch on October 28. It will also offer a free trial, and the final purchase price will be $19.99. The file size clocks in at under 5GB; remember, those millions of planets aren’t assets stored in a folder. Instead, they’re generated on-device as you go.

Senior Editor

Senior Editor

Samuel Axon is the editorial lead for tech and gaming coverage at Ars Technica. He covers physical and generative AI, large language models, software development, gaming, entertainment, and mixed reality. He has been writing about gaming and technology for nearly two decades at Engadget, PC World, Mashable, Vice, Polygon, Wired, and others. He previously ran a marketing and PR agency in the gaming industry, led editorial for the TV network CBS, and worked on social media marketing strategy for Samsung Mobile at the creative agency SPCSHP. He also is an independent software and game developer for iOS, Windows, and other platforms, and he is a graduate of DePaul University, where he studied interactive media and software development.

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