We've all heard the No Man's Sky story by now: controversial launch followed by, as commenters often put it, the greatest redemption arc in the history of gaming. Somewhat remarkably, developer Hello Games' exploratory space sim has now received almost forty major updates since its launch in 2016, all helping No Man's Sky turn its initial "Overwhelmingly Negative" rating into "Very Positive" on Steam. But earlier this week, shortly after the arrival of its Voyagers update, No Man's Sky hit another incredible milestone, reaching its highest Steam player count since its launch nine years ago.

Following a peak of 212K Steam players on its initial release (as per SteamDB), No Man's Sky's numbers gradually sunk to a low of around 1K by March 2018. But just a few months later, buoyed on by its massive Next update, the game saw its highest Steam player count since 2016, peaking at 97,723. Subsequent releases have continued to increase interest in the procedural space sim, but none have been as enthusiastically received as last week's Voyagers update. Player numbers climbed quickly after its arrival, until Monday when, with much of the US off work for Labour Day, they finally reached their highest point since August 2016, with 98,285 Steam players exploring the universe concurrently. It was an impressive moment - especially for a game that's ten next year.

Here's No Man's Sky's Steam player count since launch. | Image credit: SteamDB

Hello Games boss Sean Murray celebrated the occasion on social media with his customary exploding head emoji, but has now discussed No Man's Sky's recent success in more detail with Eurogamer. "Most of the time you are working on a game or an update, and you have no idea how it'll be received," Murray explained. "Often during development you lose perspective, and you can't see the wood for the trees. With Voyagers though, even from the earliest days it was obvious there was something really special about just flying around in a ship you built with your friends. It's just something that we've all seen glimpses of in other games, but there's a certain magic about exploring the universe in your own USS Enterprise or Millennium Falcon."

"It has also been one of the hardest things our team has undertaken," Murray continued. "We are still a small team, and this has been a really ambitious feature to add to a game that was released nearly a decade ago. Over the last year we were never fully sure if we could pull it off. I know my name is associated with No Man's Sky, but really it's the team - I couldn't be prouder of what they've managed to achieve. I'm so happy that it's getting the reaction that it has. Many of us have worked on this game for years, or were here for launch - and I genuinely feel the team really deserve this, they've earned it."

No Man's Sky Voyagers Trailer (Update 6.0) A trailer for No Man's Sky's recent Voyagers update.Watch on YouTube

Voyagers is No Man's Sky's 38th major update and heralds the arrival of fully customisable Corvette-class ships. While last year's Orbital update introduced a spaceship editor, providing the tools to construct standard-scale vessels for solo occupants, Voyagers takes things to a whole new level. Corvettes allow for an impressive degree of design flexibility, giving players the means to create elaborate - and potentially huge - multi-crew ships, featuring navigable multi-level interiors built from a range of differently themed parts. These can then be further embellished by bolting functional systems and cosmetic components to the exterior for complete personalisation.

About the only wrinkle to all this is the slightly convoluted way parts are acquired in standard mode, meaning it's not quite as simple as dropping into a hangar and designing your dream ship. But that hasn't stopped No Man's Sky players (some using Creative Mode, admittedly) from whipping up a range of incredibly striking Corvettes already. Over on the game's wonderfully chill subreddit, there's evidence of everything from the virtually inevitable - Millennium Falcons, Star Destroyers, the TARDIS - to space galleons, elaborate floating cities, the Batmobile, a classic Lego Space Explorer, even Discword itself, drifting through the universe on four turtle-mounted almost-elephants.

Image credit: u/Muhdgo Image credit: u/damagerlondon Image credit: u/Tbags005 Image credit: u/NutJugYT Image credit: u/waycoolway

Things, as you might imagine, get weirder from there. Behold, for instance, this old-school Nokia phone, a forklift truck, and a no doubt delicious space-hotdog. Elsewhere, someone's whipped up a suprisingly majestic Homer Simpson, and of course we have a Thomas the Tank Engine. Murray himself shared a fan's Formula 1 space-racer, and I'm particularly partial to this pilotable tropical island, which is virtually unrecognisable as a ship when parked in water. My design efforts look a little tragic by comparison!

Image credit: u/ArthurDentSky42 Image credit: u/Huzbubber_Tim Image credit: u/RW_Blackbird Image credit: u/AcoupleofIrishfolk Image credit: u/AcoupleofIrishfolk

But back to Murray and the team at Hello Games. "It's been a crazy twelve months for us," he continued to Eurogamer. "We've launched Worlds Part I and Part II, as well as Voyagers in that time. All huge updates that have really changed No Man's Sky inside and out. Meanwhile Light No Fire is incredibly busy behind the scenes. It's exciting and fun, I've never worked on a team that is this productive and creative. There's a buzz to it day to day, but it's also hard work. We're deep in the trenches right now, fixing issues and fighting fires. And god, it's been a long journey! So these moments, seeing so many folks enjoying the game, seeing us hit big numbers, it's really meaningful. We don't take it for granted. It's the most important thing to us."