No Man’s Sky Comes to iPhone and iPad, Hello Games Confirms

Hello Games is bringing No Man’s Sky to the iPhone and iPad, with pre-orders live now on the Apple App Store and a release set for October 28. The studio announced the port on Monday, a decade after the game first arrived on PlayStation 4 and PC, and it lands during Apple’s App Store Indie Games Week.

What Hello Games is promising on mobile

The short version, in the studio’s own words: “This is not No Man’s Sky Lite.” The mobile release carries the full universe rather than a cut-down build, including more than forty major updates. Sean Murray’s announcement singles out COSMOS, which shipped only weeks ago, and Voyagers, the update that let players build their own capital-class starships.

There are limits, and they mirror the studio’s first Switch launch. Multiplayer is not supported. Planetary Settlements, the base-building system added in 2021, work only on iPhone 15 Pro and above. Everything else, from on-planet exploration to vehicles and mechs, is present.

Which iPhones and iPads are supported

The studio is targeting a far wider device range than mobile ports usually attempt. It runs on iPhone 11 and third-generation iPad Air and above, hardware that is several generations old. The build requires iOS 26.0 and comes in at under 4GB, because the universe is generated at runtime on the device rather than shipped as a fixed map.

Controls were rebuilt for touch rather than mapped onto a controller layout. The studio also supports physical controllers, casting to a TV, and a mouse and keyboard on iPad.

Philippine pricing and availability

The Philippine App Store lists the game as a free download with a single in-app purchase, labeled FULL GAME UNLOCK, at PhP1,290.00. Players can sample the opening of the game before paying, which the listing describes as “try before you buy.”

One detail is worth flagging for local buyers. The studio says October 28, but the Philippine storefront shows an expected date of October 29, so the game may reach local accounts a day later than the studio’s announcement reads.

The port began almost by accident. Murray writes that shortly after the Mac version was announced, someone on the team said they reckoned they could get the game running on an iPhone, a claim he did not believe until he played it. Getting there took roughly three years of work on battery life and thermals.

The studio is also asking players to wishlist Light No Fire, its next game, and is helping Overcooked studio Ghost Town Games bring Stage Fright to market. Closer to home, No Man’s Sky on mobile follows Delta Duo bringing DS emulation to the iPhone Duo and DroidDeck putting SteamOS on Android handhelds, two other recent examples of full-size games turning up on hardware nobody expected them on.