Hello Games has urged people with early copies of No Man's Sky not to play it until the title's first update goes live. It's been a manic few days for the Guildford-based studio, as retail has started shipping copies early – despite the fact that the release's seemingly essential day one patch is still going through quality assurance.

Initially, one person paid $1,300 to get their hands on the game – but now our Twitter feed is full of people playing. Sony, who's publishing the title on the PlayStation 4, has held back review code to ensure that critics cover the "final" version of the hotly anticipated foray – despite some outlets obtaining "leaked" copies and stating that they're going to cover them anyway.

And in an impassioned plea on Twitter, company founder Sean Murray implored fans to sit tight just a little longer. "If you are reviewing/playing our game without our update, on a leaked copy, then please don't," he wrote. "It's not what players will experience." The day one patch is said to include balancing tweaks, additional content, and more.

Elsewhere, the developer has said that it will be wiping No Man's Sky's servers on Sunday, so any discoveries that you've made will be deleted imminently anyway. It's a weird situation this, but then it's unprecedented for a team of ten or so people to be shipping a title that's probably going to sell multiple millions of units.

Maybe cut the Guildford-based developer a teensy bit of slack...

[source twitter.com]