I quit my job at EA, where I worked on Burnout, sold my house and started an indie games studio with three friends. Tomorrow we release our next game. AMA!

Could uh, could you do something like Burnout again?

I mean not Burnout exactly, and certainly not something exactly like Burnout 3 - but I mean, something real close.

I have a recurring dream that I am back working on Burnout 3. Normally that I'm playing the game, and we've made it so every race ends with a crash junction. Then I wake up in a cold sweat. Games dev does things to you.

When Sony became heavily involved, did they have any input (or say) on the final product? Is this still completely your vision?

Sony has been super cool to work with, but mainly just because they haven't been involved in development, you know? We're still sort of the underdog with Sony, and in the general AAA (for obvious reasons). If NMS is a success, I think that probably will have a real impact in terms of how a lot of people in larger publishers view indie games. People generally think of NMS as a Sony title, but we're still just a self funded indie studio - it's kind of a crazy situation :)

Will No Man's Sky on PC have FOV options? Or at least a higher default than the PS4 version? Literally the only thing keeping me from preordering...

Innes and Charlie are here working on it right now, but every time someone asks we take away one degree of field of view http://imgur.com/L9CIxSR

Hi Sean. Hope you're well. Sorry. You've worked so very hard in bringing this game to life and put up with intense media & fan pressure very well (all for some unaccomplished idiot to write mildly humorous satirical erotic fiction about you). Would be interested to hear how you reacted. I hope you liked it tho.

I do have to ask a question, so... Wanna grab dinner sometime? ;)

Sure... where we going?

How drunk were you guys in your live stream today?

Yeah, so everyone thinks we were high or drunk :( Just hadn't eaten today, and am operating on zero sleep. It's an ok buzz. 5/10. Would not sleep again.

Hey Sean, In an old trailer I saw huge snakes/wurms, are those still in the game?

Also have a nice day!

Oh man, I hate questions like this, because like wouldn't you just rather discover for yourself? Huge creatures are out there, and I haven't seen them on streams yet. They are rare.

Will PS4 and PC Universes be linked in any way?

PS4 and PC players are using two different servers. We are running a control experiment to see who names things the most juvenile things... Let the games begin!

Hey Sean,

How often do you and your coworkers read /r/nomansskythegame?

Some of the team read it for sure, and then post me the weirdest stuff :) OK sso I'll admit there have been times, my lowest on the project, where I've looked at the subreddit and it's cheered me up and kept me going. But there have been times I've looked on there and despaired - and just thought "how can we ever live up to the expectations of people who having been waiting for this game for 3 years"

Will your glorious beard be shaved now?

So basically my beard is a disguise. I'm totally going to shave it off when this game is done, and burn every check shirt I own (5?) and hopefully no one will ever shout "No Man's Sky FOV Slider?" at me in the street. ever. again. in. my. life.

If anyone does have a suggestion for new look, I'm totally open to that. Beard and check shirts is pretty much all I got... same as everyone else who works in games :)

Do you think our real universe is procedurally generated or perhaps a simulation?

So Elon Musk asked me this (NAME DROP!). I said if I was Elon Musk, then I'd be pretty sure it was right? Like load up the holodeck with the disk where I get to colonise mars and make self driving cars... So I think he almost certainly is, and then I'm an AI bot I guess? In his simulation? Controlled by a giant AI that's smirking to itself whilst I give this answer....

Is the PC getting a midnight release?

The reality is that we're still here working on it right now. There's no conspiracy, we're just racing to get all the extra options and stuff we want. PS4 comes out tomorrow and we'll just try to pretend it's a normal work day! Best guess right now is 6pm GMT on Friday, but we'll keep you up to date as we get closer.

I'll tell you a funny story about PC. I was here late yesterday, and I had to take a break and do an interview with Playboy (!) - and the guy was like "what are you working on when you go back downstairs?" and I was like "compatibility for ATI opengl drivers", and he said "ummm.... could you make something up. That sounds pretty nerdy". I always knew I wasn't Playboy article material :)

Hello Sean, I'm the one whose thread you linked in your recent blog post, which was titled "What do you do in No Man's Sky and other questions - Answered", and new moderator on the No Man's Sky sub-reddit! It's so great to finally have the opportunity to ask questions, its been a long time coming!

You mention being tight-lipped on the PC version, and you've got your reasons, but will you be tight lipped in this AMA? I'm very interested to know how the PC version has been coming along, and what settings we'll have access to.

Side-question, you mentioned years ago that you hadn't found a planet you'd rather live on than Earth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0uYnwqlslU) - has this changed?

Whenever devs are tight-lipped, it's normally just because they literally, legally, can't talk about a thing. Man, you would surprised how wrapped up most devs are in contracts and nonesense. Often for instance lots of devs will have a clause that says "you literally can't say the name of platform X". Knowing this it's really funny watching interviews where devs are squirming trying not to the word Wii or whatever when being asked about some industry thing :) - you see us say things like "well the thing about supporting... that particular console is..."

How close is the game coming out compared to the original idea you had of NMS?

I think really close... I think? I was kinda posting about that today, going back to early versions of the game:

http://www.no-mans-sky.com/2016/08/what-do-you-do-in-no-mans-sky/

How did the development of the game affect you physically and mentally?

Apparently so bad that pictures of it gets lots of RTs :(

https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/762648125672714240

Hey Sean

Congrats on release this week! Many people have noticed that you guys seem to really be trying to aggressively manage expectations.

Can you just talk about balancing expectations/hype in the lead up to release based on your experience so far?

What might you do differently for future titles?

REAL TALK - so obviously the hype is terrifying. I mean, I have had this hanging over me for three years since we announced. I get like 3 hours sleep a night, but like I can't sleep even if I was home so ¯_(シ)_/¯. It's catch 22, if we hadn't announced when we did, we probably would have quit the project without the community supporting us... but god... should I have passed up Colbert? Or E3? I dunno. Every time we showed the game we always assumed people would suddenly not like it anymore... but instead the hype would just get crazier. In an alternate timeline, imagine if we could just be showing it for the first time tonight and launching tomorrow? Imagine how fun that would have been...

Favorite kind of tea?

An Irishman, it has to be "Barry's Irish tea!"

OMG! I was about to say Barry's Tea! This is what it feels like, when doves cry

Hi Sean, absurdly hyped for NMS! With NMS gaining so much traction - despite its indie status on PS4 it's being given the billing of a major AAA title - would you consider expanding HelloGames into a multi-project studio, or do you prefer more of a Pixar/Naughty Dog single-game style environment?

Initially I think we'll all be supporting NMS. But there are other ideas we've got rattling around in our heads too. I think video games is just such a largely unexplored field. There's very few studios that pull off the two game thing, but supporting one game and then kicking off something new - that's doable right?

Sh*t, I just remembered, we've got another thing we're already working on that's unannounced. It's a small experiment, but hopefully you all might like it :)

Maybe we can be the Johnny Depp of studios :D - do a mixture of big stuff and indie stuff? :D

Hi Sean,

I've heard rumors of the possibility of an API at some point for at least Atlas data, will that be a thing?

It could be for sure. We were talking today about just having a twitter bot that tweets discovery names at random. We've just been glued to the screen all day, watching names come in. Game isn't out... but we had like 160k discoveries uploaded today... so... :o