Speaking to IGN (opens in new tab) earlier this week, Hello Games studio managing director Sean Murray spoke about the developer’s next project. “For a while now we’ve been working on something pretty ambitious in the background,” the No Man’s Sky creative director said. 

“Similar to No Man’s Sky, it’s the kind of project that even if we had a thousand people working on it, it’d still seem impossible,” he continued With Murray speaking on the ambitous nature of Hello Games’ next project, it’s hard not to naturally draw comparisons to No Man’s Sky, and how Murray talked up the game at the time.

Prior to its launch in 2016, Murray talked up No Man’s Sky as being a shared universe, a feature many found to be ultimately missing from the final release, and were also underwhelmed with various other aspects, such as crashes and the time it took to reach the centre of the galaxy, the objective of the entire game.

Fast forward roughly six years, and No Man’s Sky is light years from where it first began, having received a grand total of 19 significant updates since launch in 2016, each one bringing various gameplay changes and improvements with it. Just this week for example, the Outlaws update overhauled spacefaring combat and even added new AI pilots to assist you in battle.

Hello Games isn’t done with No Man’s Sky either, despite this new ambitious game. Just earlier this year, Murray himself said that the spacefaring game wasn’t finished “by a long shot,” pointing to further updates and improvements yet to come. Whatever’s next for Hello Games, and however ambitious it might be, No Man’s Sky will continue to improve.

A No Man’s Sky Nintendo Switch edition is even on the way later this year.

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Announced and released today, the No Man’s Sky Sentinel update brings an overhaul of the combat systems and enemies currently in the game in order to make the game much more difficult. The update is available from today on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, as well as through Xbox GamePass and in VR. 

The Sentinels, which already exist in No Man’s Sky, have received an upgrade making them more interesting and also more fun to defeat. New classes of drone – including heavies, summoners, and repair units – have all been added in the update and each Sentinel now deploys their own mobile energy shields and has access to weaponry. Also included in this update is fresh lore surrounding how Sentinels came to be in the form of new story missions. 

Luckily for players though, this update will also bring an array of combat improvements and enhancements. Once the latest update has been downloaded, players will have access to new weapons and upgrades, like the Neutron Cannon and stun grenade. You’ll also be able to install an AI onto your own Minotaur Exomech and have it protect you during combat. 

All of this and more will be available to experience in No Man’s Sky from today, there’s also a new Exobiology Expedition launching next week which will have a tonne of exclusive new rewards for players up for grabs. 

Can’t wait to jump into the Sentinel update? Take a look at our No Man’s Sky tips before you get started.

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The No Man’s Sky patch notes for Frontiers patch 3.67 are all bug fixes, with most of the changes related to building and managing settlements. One of the most important changes means your settlement’s denizens will “now have appropriate thoughts while under attack by Sentinels or fleeing a storm,” which implies they used to think about things they shouldn’t have during that kind of dangerous situation.

What was on your settlers’ minds before the update, when they were being chased by ancient murder robots or surrounded by deadly lighting? Perhaps Hello Games couldn’t tell us any more without risking No Man’s Sky’s Teen rating.

Other changes in the patch include giving players more information about when they’ll need to make their next decision about their settlement, which should make your life easier, and squashing a bug that would cause Sentinel attacks to be canceled before any enemies showed up, which should make your life harder.

On the other hand, nothing brings a community together like a raid by the robotic stewards of the land. Especially now that you don’t have to worry about anybody getting caught up with inappropriate thoughts when they should be fighting for their life.

You can find the full patch notes on the official site (opens in new tab) for No Man’s Sky.

• Games like No Man’s Sky that are out of this world

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you guys 😭 pic.twitter.com/eviUu0s4OgSeptember 6, 2021

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Hello Games boss Sean Murray celebrated the milestone on Twitter. At the time of writing, Steam says No Man’s Sky is sitting at 70% positive reviews overall, which means that roughly 114,137 of its 163,053 reviews are positive. Compare that to reviews based purely on the current state of the game: 91% of the most recent 4,045 reviews are positive. There’s a bit of napkin math between review criteria, but the message is clear: No Man’s Sky is a good video game. 

“Moving to ‘mixed’ took nearly two years,” Murray explained, “moving to ‘mostly positive’ has taken the last three. Each all-time [percent point] is exponentially harder. 69 to 70 percent took nearly 10,000 positive reviews. Never thought we’d be here. We’re incredibly grateful for players’ continued support.” 

Longtime No Man’s Sky fans will likely remember that the game received scathing criticism when it was released back in 2016, and may well have submitted such feedback themselves. Rather than a review bomb meant as an act of protest, the game’s initial wave of negative reviews reflected the general attitude toward the then-meager space sim. Of course, looking at the game today, it’s easy to forget how sparse it used to be. Through years of no-doubt painstaking work, No Man’s Sky has become the game to point to when talking about comebacks – a vibrant, thriving universe that’s long since surpassed its initial promise. 

• Games like No Man’s Sky that are out of this world

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In the new announcement trailer, developer Hello Games explains that Expeditions offers a seasonal way to explore the universe as part of a group. Every player will start on the same planet, with an expedition plotted out to direct them across the galaxy. While you’ll all be going the same way, however, everyone involved in the expedition will have their own unique collection of tech, customizations, ships, and weapons, encouraging collaboration with fellow explorers.

To help you reach your goal, new exploration milestones offer rewards and make it easier to find fellow explorers on the same adventure, while the Analysis Visor’s new Target Sweep mode makes it easier to explore, with a number of missions overhauled to make use of the new feature.

As well as the expeditions themselves, the update features a number of other changes, including a fully-updated HUD, colour-blind support, improved text-chat and better pinning. You’ll also be able to call in your walkers, Titanfall-style, and merge your account names across platforms. You can check out the full patch notes here (opens in new tab).

Expeditions arrives today, and to help celebrate, Hello Games is also rolling out Twitch drop support over the Easter weekend. If you’re watching No Man’s Sky streams between April 1-5, you might win some valuable items redeemable on a linked account.

If you’re looking to jump back in and play with your friends, here’s our No Man’s Sky multiplayer guide.

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There have been some amazing expansions to current releases this year, and No Man’s Sky won the vote to beat out the likes of Control’s Alan Wake AWE expansion, Final Fantasy 14’s Reflections in Crystal, and The Sims 4 Star Wars: Journey to Batuu. 

You can see the full list of nominees below: 

•  Control: AWE (Remedy Games / 505 Games)  
•  No Man’s Sky: Origins (Hello Games / Hello Games) 
•  Total War: Warhammer 2 – The Warden and the Paunch (Creative Assembly)  
•  Pokemon Sword and Shield – Expansion Pass (Nintendo / Nintendo)  
•  The Sims 4 Star Wars: Journey to Batuu (Maxis / EA) 
•  Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath (NetherRealm Studios / Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment)   
•  The Outer Worlds: Peril on Gorgon (Obsidian Entertainment / Private Division)

Breathing new life into its starry universe, Hello Games launched the No Man’s Sky Origins update in September. The major expansion set out to deliver a richer, more diverse universe for players to explore. With new planets, biomes, lifeforms, and natural hazards, Origins also introduced more binary and ternary star systems and landscapes, as well as more dynamic weather. Following a plethora of other updates, Origins also brought in a host of fan-requested features such as multi-tool upgrades and planetary NPC encounters, along with various improvements across the game. 

And long time fans were also treated to the addition of the much-fabled Sandworm. The large worm first appeared in a reveal trailer all the way back in 2013, and it’s now officially found its way planetside for space-faring players to encounter. 

Expansions can give games a renewed lease of life, and keep players invested for years to come. The work that goes into bringing more content to the games we love should be celebrated, and big congratulations are due to Hello Games for earning the votes for this award, along with all of the nominees for making the shortlist. 

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Saving in No Man’s Sky With Your Ship

This is one of the ways in which No Man’s Sky introduces you to its limited auto-save system. Essentially, you don’t have to do anything special here; no need to manually toggle to anything or to access any complicated menus. Once you’ve gotten far enough in the main story quest to access your ship (which shouldn’t take more than half an hour), entering and exiting it will trigger a restore point. This is how you save the game automatically. This method works regardless of your location, so if you’ve been mining rare materials until the cows come home and it gets dark, we would recommend winging it quickly to your ship for safety and for the added assurance that all 10,000 Ferrite Dust that you mined over the course of the day will be protected. 

Saving in No Man’s Sky with Beacons

Aside from the autosave method which involves you always having to be by your ship, you can also invest in a beacon. These bad boys can be found on planets in random locations, whether it’s on top of a hillock populated by toxic plants or hanging around buildings or ruined ships. It’s as easy as walking up to one of these beacons and interacting with it in order to save the game. 

However, if you can’t be bothered sprinting around to find an errant beacon here or there, then there’s also another solution available to those who consider themselves Crafting experts. You can build a beacon of your own to ensure that you can mark waypoints, and plopping down one on your planet will let you save at your leisure wherever this beacon may be. Those wanting to get particularly fancy with it can change the colors of the beacons after pressing Z to access the Build Menu, and the color of the beacon will correspond to how it’s marked on your navigational system. You can have up to five beacons on a planet at a time so you don’t have to run five hundred miles to get to one save point if that’s a worry for you. If you want to make a beacon, you’re going to require the following materials. This recipe was most recently changed in the NEXT update, and we’re not sure if this will change again with the Beyond patch but we will update this ingredient list if it does:

• Metal Plating x 1
• Ion Battery x 2
• Microprocessor x 1

Saving can be a bit of an opaque process thanks to the current state of the tutorial, but Hello Games has mentioned that they plan on refining this initial getting-to-know-you part of the game to make it clearer. Whether this means that the game will go through auto-saving and the like in greater detail remains to be seen, but until then, our streamlined guide should have you sorted out if you’re wanting to ensure that none of your progress in No Man’s Sky gets lost on your watch.

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“I guess it’s not a huge surprise, but all of the team here is in love with everything sci-fi. Virtual reality feels like a little science fiction become real, and has always seemed like a perfect fit for this futuristic game of ours,” Hello Games’ Sean Murray told us over email as he confirmed the news. “It’s completely unique to land on a world that no-one has ever seen before and to really feel as if you’re there, and the team has worked so hard to make this a true VR experience rather than a port.”

No Man’s Sky VR will launch – for free! – as part of the sweeping Beyond update (opens in new tab), which is also set to dramatically change the multiplayer component to the game following its introduction to the game in last year’s No Man’s Sky Next (opens in new tab) expansion. No Man’s Sky Beyond, if you’ll recall, is made up of three distinct parts that are designed to give each and every one of you players out there reason to hop back into a spaceship and explore the far reaches of the galaxy. 

The first is No Man’s Sky Online, which Hello Games teases will be a “a radical new social and multiplayer experience which empowers players everywhere in the universe to meet and play together.”

The second, as we are now learning, will be the addition of VR to the core game with no strings attached. Hello Games is keen to stress that this isn’t a separate mode, but is in fact “the entire game brought to life in virtual reality”. It means that anything that you can currently do in No Man’s Sky or in the Next expansion – not to mention in any future updates that might release down the line – can be experienced through what the studio is teasing is an “immersive and enriched VR experience”, and you’ll be able to do it without sacrificing an inch of your progress.  

As for the third pillar of Beyond? Well, Hello Games isn’t quite ready to talk about that one just yet. However, given the scope of the first two portions of this package – the addition of a huge MMO-type multiplayer experience and full PlayStation VR and Steam VR support – the mind can only imagine what ridiculous things the studio has in store for us next.  

VR support has been a highly requested feature for No Man’s Sky ever since it was first unveiled way back in 2014. The screenshots have given us but a taste of what’s to come, but we’re eager to experience it in action for ourselves. Here’s hoping Hello Games doesn’t make us wait until the Summer to make that happen. 

For help surviving in Hello Games’ procedural expanse, read up on our guide on how to make money fast in No Man’s Sky, or check out our video guide on how to get the best out of the game’s multiplayer:

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Details are scarce for the moment, but we know the update will at least add a new vehicle designed to “aid home planet exploration.” Personally, I’m hoping for something of a rover design, like the Mako or Nomad from Mass Effect. No other details were given, though we won’t have to wait long to find out what else is in the update, as Hello Games said it will be distributed later this week.

I’m curious: Is a new vehicle enough to excite you, or will you wait to see what else the future holds? And if you tried No Man’s Sky but quit, what would it take to draw you back?

Seen something newsworthy? Tell us (opens in new tab)! 

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“I understand some of the criticisms especially Sean Murray is getting, because he sounded like he was promising more features in the game from day one,” Yoshida told Eurogamer (opens in new tab) at the Tokyo Game Show. “It wasn’t a great PR strategy, because he didn’t have a PR person helping him, and in the end he is an indie developer. But he says their plan is to continue to develop No Man’s Sky features and such, and I’m looking forward to continuing to play the game.”

I admit I squint my eyes in suspicion at Yoshida’s response. Sony was not directly involved with development of No Man’s Sky, but it published the physical edition and made a point of touting it as a PlayStation-exclusive game (when it comes to consoles, anyway – the game is also available for PC). One would think you wouldn’t tie yourself so closely to a game if you didn’t know what kind of state it was going to ship in.

Despite the surrounding discontentment, Yoshida said he’s enjoying the game, and he’s proud to count it among the PlayStation family.

Seen something newsworthy? Tell us (opens in new tab)! 

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