What you need to know
- The No Man's Sky: Beyond update just dropped today.
- The patch adds several incredible new systems.
- Some of these include farming, better base-building, and computer logic.
- No Man's Sky is currently $26 on Amazon.
Today, Hello Games released No Man's Sky: Beyond on Xbox One and PC. Not only does it add a host of new features like farming, better planet generation, and more, but it also gives PC players even more reasons to jump back in. The studio said the update "massively expands the multiplayer experience" and "takes immersion to a whole new level with fully-fledged virtual reality (VR), overhauled base building... technology trees, and... more."
The biggest addition, of course, has to be VR. You can switch seamlessly between VR and standard gameplay and continue from an existing save to revisit favorite planets, bases, and creatures using a headset. Keep in mind that VR is only available on supported platforms. For example, the Xbox One, Xbox One S, or Xbox One X don't support VR, so you won't be able to play it that way.
Multiplayer has also received a massive boost. For example, the social hub known as the Space Anomaly can hold 16 players on all platforms. However, even more people can join you depending on the platform. The maximum player count has increased from 4 to 8 players on console, and from 4 to 32 players on PC. You can easily meet friends, explore bases, teleport around, and engage in other activities at the Space Anomaly.
One of the biggest complaints No Man's Sky players expressed was that the early tutorial missions weren't clear. Luckily, the team has reworked this so that all three storylines fit together in a meaningful way and it's easier to jump right in. Spaceship and combat controls have also been improved so that there's an even smaller barrier to entry.
Just like Ark: Survival Evolved or Conan Exiles, you can now tame creatures with bait, then mount and ride them. This makes it easy to explore without wasting valuable fuel. There are also other devious ways to use creatures, like harvesting them, but we'd rather have a pet than a pile of goop.
Just like Minecraft, No Man's Sky now features computer logic. This means that you can build all sorts of contraptions like automatic lights and movement-sensitive walls. The possibilities are endless, and it'll be interesting to see what users create in the coming days and months.
The game has been heavily optimized throughout, improving performance in every area of the universe. Players on lower-end PCs will now be able to enjoy massive frame rate improvements, and the game now supports integrated Intel cards. Other details like the inside of cockpits and ship models have also been redone with new textures to make them stand out. It's quite the looker on PC now. OpenGL has been replaced by Vulkan, so many AMD graphics cards should see a performance improvement. Hello Games has also added more graphical settings to tweak the visuals.
Lastly, if you're a fan of exocrafts, you'll be thrilled to know that they can now be driven from a first-person perspective. If you like to play the game in first-person mode, the switch was somewhat jarring beforehand. There are a lot more changes and I barely scratched the surface. You can take a look at the complete patch notes here.
Are you tempted to jump back into No Man's Sky? Let us know. We've been playing it for the past few hours and it's definitely a much-improved experience. Hopefully, this excellent post-launch support will continue well into the future.
Take to the stars
No Man's Sky is an ambitious space exploration simulator from Hello Games. With the most recent updates, you can catalog uncharted life on foreign worlds, build a home base with your friends, and more. The sky isn't the limit anymore!
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