In addition to touch controls (which actually ought to be a good fit for a menu-heavy game like this), the iPhone version supports game controllers and casting to a TV, while the iPad version supports both of those things, plus mouse and keyboard input.
Hello Games has been working on the iOS version for three years. It also recently released a well-received macOS port of the game.
No Man’s Sky’s iOS port is part of what Apple is billing “indie games week,” which includes a few other titles of note, like the cat exploration game Little Kitty, Big City, and strategy game 9 Kings.
While the other indie titles in Apple’s push have already started rolling out, No Man’s Sky will be a bit still: It will launch on October 28. It will also offer a free trial, and the final purchase price will be $19.99. The file size clocks in at under 5GB; remember, those millions of planets aren’t assets stored in a folder. Instead, they’re generated on-device as you go.