No Man's Sky is a 2016 video game developed by the British development studio, Hello Games. No Man's Sky allows the player to partake in four principal activities—exploration, survival, combat, and trading—in a shared, deterministic, procedurally generated open universe, which contains over 18 quintillion (1.8×1019) planets each with their own unique environment and flora and fauna.
The concept of No Man's Sky is based on a long-time desire by Hello Games' founder, Sean Murray, to create a space exploration game that captured the vision and optimism of science fiction writings and art of the 1970s and 1980s. Seeing the game as a landmark title for the studio, Murray led Hello Games towards financial stability with their Joe Danger titles and then began working on the game with a small team of four. The game was formally revealed during the 2013 VGX Awards, following which Murray brought on more staff to complete the title over the next three years.
Much of the game uses parametric mathematical formulae that can simulate structures found in nature to craft nearly all aspects of the game's universe. Flora and fauna are crafted from similar routines that combine human-supplied art and pre-defined structures into new lifeforms. The audio and music in the game is also procedurally generated, with routines and audio created by Paul Weir and music provided by the band 65daysofstatic.