After months of silence following the release of No Man’s Sky, developer Hello Games’ Twitter account saw a post appear and disappear that called the game “a mistake.” Developer lead Sean Murray’s official Twitter has been updated as well, suggesting that the post was the result of a hack.
The tweet has since been deleted, and the Hello Games twitter account put into protected mode. While Polygon received confirmation from someone responding to Hello Games lead Sean Murray’s email account that the tweet was legitimate, Forbes reports that the tweet was posted by a “disgruntled employee.”
Polygon received a response stating that “the tweet is from me, but somebody from the team took it down.” The person responding added that the team “have not been coping well.”
As we wrote this, the official No Man’s Sky account was updated with the following tweet:
The collection of bizarre communique definitely makes this all seem like one of the computers in the Hello Games office was compromised, giving someone access to the Twitter accounts and email at the same time.
This tweet seems like it might’ve actually been from Murray. Immediately after it was posted, the account was updated to say that “if anything was a mistake, it was using LinkedIn without 2FA,” and added that it’s “Nice to see *someone* use the account at least.” Murray requested that the hackers “please sort all my pending invites” while they’re in there.
We’ll update this story as it continues to develop. This is a good reminder to use Two-Factor Authentication and strong passwords.
No Man’s Sky was cursed by hype even before release
See full gallery on TechnoBuffaloNo Man’s Sky launched earlier this year after a couple years of hype from people who felt they were advertised one game and sold another. The game and developer are currently under investigation for false advertising, and Sony has distanced itself from the game, calling the developer’s PR strategy “flawed.” We were wonderfully overwhelmed by the opening hours of the game, but monotony and bugs took their toll, ultimately leaving us cold, though some have still had great fun with the game. Since launch, most of the audience has dropped off.
Hello Games’ silence on the matter, likely intended to mitigate additional damage, instead seems to have made things worse as frustrated fans continue to wonder if the game they were promised is ever coming. If this is indeed a hack, it seems those unhappy fans have taken their frustration to the next level and are hoping to cause the developer even more misery.
UPDATE: The Hello Games official Twitter is once again active, clarifying that the original tweet was indeed a hack, as were the emails that followed to Polygon and Kotaku.
https://twitter.com/hellogames/status/792024895525949440