Game Designer Recreates Swanky Taco Bell in No Man’s Sky

If there’s even been a fast food restaurant to embrace strange collaborations, it’s Taco Bell. It’s the restaurant that took a look at “Buffalo Chicken Nacho Fries” and thought, “Yeah, sure, OK.” While it technically doesn’t have anything to do with this, officially, it still somehow makes sense that there should be a monument to one of the swankiest Taco Bell’s in existence within the confines of the space exploration video game No Man’s Sky.

Game designer JP LeBreton, who works as a full-time game designer for Psychonauts 2 developer Double Fine, recently shared his creation on Twitter. Specifically, LeBreton took the somewhat surreal, newly reopened seaside Pacifica Taco Bell location with its intriguing architecture and fascinating location and replicated it within the confines of No Man’s Sky using the game’s Creative Mode.

You can check out his work below:

While it might not be a perfect 1:1 recreation of the real-life restaurant, the resemblance is certainly uncanny, and LeBreton captures the spirit of the place while remaining as close as possible with the restrictions inherent to the platform. It’s so good, in fact, that Hello Games founder Sean Murray even shared it.

For reference, here’s a PR shot of the actual Taco Bell:

And here’s LeBreton’s screenshot:

Fans looking to visit the digital Taco Bell recreation within No Man’s Sky can find directions on LeBreton’s website.

Speaking of Sean Murray, the developer had a lot to say during his recent keynote at the Develop:Brighton conference. He spoke at length about the initial reaction to No Man’s Sky and the way in which the company weathered the storm of community feedback and conversation.

“We went about two years without talking to press at all,” he reportedly said. “And we went about three months without saying anything to the community either. That was really hard. I sat down so many times and wrote the perfect blog post that was going to explain everything about the game’s development, and the road map going ahead. But I could see that it didn’t hold credibility with regards to where we were at.”

“There have been a number of games that have since come out, had a polarising launch, and that explosive mix of loads of people playing it but also problems. And I can see EA, Microsoft, or Bethesda try to placate players by just talking to them, but for right or wrong, it just doesn’t really work. You see this all the time when a big publisher will talk to the community and try to solve the problem and then get embroiled, taking up more and more of its head space.”