They stole an asset from No Man’s Sky, but they didn’t know one thing. Sean Murray reveals why it was a fatal mistake

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Update (December 4)

Starry Studios told PCGamesN they plan to replace some game elements and update how they create graphics to prevent similar issues in the future.

Original news (December 3)

No Man’s Sky may have used assets from another game, even though those assets weren’t particularly high quality.

While there’s been a lot of talk about AI and copyright, regular old plagiarism is still happening. It seems the game studio Hello Games recently experienced this firsthand.

Premium in Once Human, unoptimized standard in NMS

So, this whole drama started on Reddit. Someone pointed out that a cosmetic item in Once Human looks really similar to the design for the basic teleport module in No Man’s Sky. It’s kinda wild! And the thing is, you can’t actually earn it just by playing – you have to get it from a loot box in Once Human, which is made by Starry Studios.

Players of OH quickly spotted striking similarities between the two games and weren’t happy about it. When news reached No Man’s Sky fans, Hello Games’ Sean Murray addressed the issue. His explanation was humorous: the No Man’s Sky team had simply overlooked adjusting the detail level, causing the teleportation module’s rivets to have an unnecessarily high number of polygons. Essentially, it was an inefficient game asset that put a strain on computers and consoles.

Everyone flipped out over Murray’s post, and it was hilarious! People were joking about how many polygons were in each rivet – seriously, each rivet! – and making fun of the ‘evil’ trap he set for anyone trying to steal his assets. It was a total bait-and-switch, and everyone knew he totally meant to make that ‘mistake’!

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2025-12-04 16:34