It appears that they used the massive influx of capital they got from the hype pre-launch to continue building their vision that was entirely too big to deliver in any timely manner. They might be able to turn this around riding that into something that generates enough interest to continue to make plenty.
Putting it on sale on steam has it back at the top, which is actually kind of incredible considering the launch outrage.
The hype wasn't for nothing, people are craving the kind of game that was described before this launched. This is potentially Minecraft all over again.
No Man's Sky is now in a sort of no-man's-land between "interesting tech demo" and "full blown video game". This new update has many new features but also myriad new bugs. It's clearly still a work in progress.
What's interesting, and unusual, is that developer has continued to work, as though the first release was really more the start of an "early access" series. Hard to believe they've made significant money from the drip of sales since.