No Man's Sky launches Origins update, dramatically expands the entire game universe

What you need to know

• No Man's Sky is an open world survival game that spans an entire galaxy of various planets and worlds.
• Since its rough launch in 2016, the game has received numerous free updates that make massive improvements.
• The latest update coming to all platforms is Origins, which adds lots of new explorable worlds, and focuses on diversity.
• With Origins, you'll see new life, weather, buildings, terrain, and a lot more to make the No Man's Sky universe feel more alive.

No Man's Sky is not the same game it was when it debuted to customer and critic whiplash back in 2016, with a flurry of free updates ranging from tiny patches to major overhauls changing pretty much every aspect of the game. The latest update to hit No Man's Sky on every platform it's available for is the Origins Update, which promises to make the universe No Man's Sky inhabits more diverse and interesting to explore, and makes some significant changes. Alongside the launch of this free update, Hello Games is also releasing a new trailer to give players a taste of what they can expect.

The Origins Update adds a lot, much of which may even be kept hidden by Hello Games to allow players to discover for themselves, but here's a quick breakdown of what the update includes:

• New planets
• Some systems can have multiple stars
• Major terrain changes that alter landscapes, with new details and more
• A refreshed UI / UX
• Far more diversity with life, like fauna and animals, and insects
• Better cloud rendering and new weather, like tornadoes, sandstorms and lightning storms
• A new biome with marshes
• The addition of volcanic mountains, and firestorms
• Increased variety with colors
• Overhauled teleporters with new interface
• Changes to photo mode
• New, massive buildings, as well as more smaller buildings
• New stories and histories to discover
• An infestation threat that has overtaken some planets
• Updates to lighting conditions
• New effects from storms
• Lots of new items and crafting recipes
• New settings for visual quality
• Portals are now more accessible and can be used more freely
• Meteors and meteor showers, which can impact planets
• Gravitational anomalies
• New planetary encounters
• The addition of synthetic life in robots
• Updates to creature behaviors and AI

As you can clearly see, the Origins Update is absolutely massive, and definitely deserves your attention of you were looking for a reason to return to No Man's Sky. The update is rolling out now to every platform for free, including Xbox, Playstation, PC, and VR. No Man's Sky is also available through Xbox Game Pass if you don't want to quite shell out for the game until you've given it a try.