No Man's Sky has gone gold

Developer Hello Games has been teasing something on the No Man's Sky Twitter feed over the past few days, and today the secret was finally revealed: After four years of development, the game has officially gone gold.

It's happened. No Man's Sky just went gold. I'm so incredibly proud of this tiny team. 4 years of emotions pic.twitter.com/YJoI6JVgxqJuly 7, 2016

The term “gone gold” derives from the practice of creating a “gold master” of a game once it's determined to be fully and finally fit for release. It's done, in other words: Patches notwithstanding, development is over and we'll soon get to actually start playing the thing.

In the case of No Man's Sky, it's an especially momentous event because it was postponed back in May, from a planned release of June until early August. That's a pretty short delay as videogame delays go, but it was still enough to result in “loads of death threats” from angry idiots who didn't want to wait an extra six weeks.

No Man's Sky is set to come out (and is presumably now assured of making it) on August 9. Be sure to check out our March hands-on, in which Chris makes friends with a yeti-rabbit, and enemies with space-gastropods.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.