No Man's Sky will probably go down as one of the greatest comeback stories in gaming history. When it originally came out, it was slagged by both players and critics for over-promising and under-delivering on its space exploration concept. However, the team at Hello Games rolled with the punches, and managed to turn No Man's Sky from a com🦋plete joke, to an experience that fans were soon willing to give a second chance.
After several months of new content being added, the team at Hello Games have now crafted one of their biggest updates yet. Titling the latest patch No Man's Sky Beyond, it aims to bring true massive onlin༺e multiplayer functionality, along with a host of other features, and quality of life improvements.
Who Knew Space Had So Many People?
The main focus of the No Man's Sky Beyond update was to complete the game's long sought after goal of connecting players together in a shared universe. It was one of the most highly touted features when the game was originally pitched, so it's nice that they finally managed to achieve it, even if it took three years to do so.
The way to find other players is by discovering a new multiplayer hub called The Nexus, which is located inside a strange space station called a Space Anomaly. Now, if you're a relatively new player in No Man's Sky, you're not going to find the Space Anomaly right away. You have to play a significant portion of the early game in order to find this hub, and then the game will finally reveal its location. It makes sense, as it's probably better that newcomers play a large part of the game first before being introduced to long-time veterans.
The Space Anomaly looks very impressive, and actually kind of beautiful in a 50's science fiction kind of way. It's a massive location, and seeing other players running around to the various shops, and interacting with one another was an incredibly cool sight to see. There's also a ton of new items to research or buy, and you get a little bit of extra story from talking to the various new NPCs, who may be some of the coolest designed characters that No Man Sky has made to date.
The Nexus is where you can actually partner with other players in order to achieve certain missions. From the missions I saw, they mostly involve things that most people are already doing in the game. This includes fighting off pirates, setting up bases, or exterminating monstrosities. The rewards are usually a couple hundred thousand credits, or some rare materials, so they're definitely worth teaming up for.
Your Pockets Can Now Hold So Much Carbon
The other big part of the update is a whole bunch of q🃏uality of life improvements. Obviously, a lot of players have had some g🌳ripes about the grindy, and occasionally tedious nature of the game. Hello Games has definitely made some very positive changes that try to alleviate a lot of those problems, along with some entirely new features.
First off, there have been a variety of adjustments made to inventory management, and the user interface, that just make playing the game so much better. The inventory limit for stacks of crafting materials has been increased from 250 to a ridiculous 10,000. I personally found the original limit kind of stifling, so now I can mine like♔ a madman. Especially since the mining laser’s speed has been increased, which makes mining feel like less of a menial task. There are way more options for base building, which include teleporters for getting around the planet. The user interface is now more intuitive, with the pinning system for items you want to focus on crafting working much better, discoveries being automatically added to a catalog, and other adjustments.
Improvements to space travel have also been added, as you can now craft “warp hypercores,” which are five times more efficient than regular old “warp cores.” There are also new pieces of technology that regenerate anti-matter🐭, or automatically recharge your ship’s launch thrusters. Having to constantly craft various kinds of fuel, and parts for your ship was another annoying aspect, and these additions make that section of the game much easier to deal with, so you have less trouble zipping off to another galaxy.
Also, you know all those adorable, orไ weird, or scary, or strangely phallic lifeforms you discover on each planet? While now you can tame them, and in certain cases, ride them. I only experimented a little with this part of the game, but feeding a group of weird amph🧸ibian, Ewok creatures, and having them follow me around in cute little packs was definitely a highlight. They’ll also provide you with stuff you can use for cooking or farming, like eggs, milk, or grossly enough, their own feces.
Speaking of cooking, that&rs🌄quo;s a new feature as well. You can build a Nutrient Processor, and cook any edible plants, meats, or any other kind of animal by-product you can scavenge. There are a pretty crazy amount of recipes available to make, and you can combine various crafted foods to make even more complex foods. A lot of this stuff went over my head a bit, so it’ll take a little while t💮o find out all the recipes you can make. There’s also a guy named Cronus on the Space Anomaly who will make fun of your bad cooking. He’s probably my new favorite character.
These are only a few of the additions added in; there’s just so many details that it would tak💝e forever to go through everything. Probably the most important update if all, is that you can finally sit in chairs.
This is♔ truly a godsend for my tubby little trav🌜eler.
Not The Smoothest Galactic Trip
This is a substantial update, but with such an update comes its own set of problems. I’ve run into quite a few bugs while playing through the game, and while I’m not 100% sure they’re a result of the new Beyond content, it sure seems like I ran into a decent amount of♛ them since🦄 the patch.
I’ve had some interactions with merchants, or story-related parts either freeze up, or not w🐎ork at all. I’ve had to reload into the game on occasion because a certain part of a mission wasn’t populating. Animals, NPCs, and other players have appeared to be floating above me, or just walking on air, while other😼s are seemingly walking through the ground. I’m playing the game on PS4, and I have experienced a few crashes, one of which cost me a bit of progress.
I also had the equivalent of my worst nightmare happen as the result of a glitch. While shopping for exosuit upgrades, I had the rather terrifying experience of falling through the floor, and finding myself str💯anded in space. I know it’s simply your average clip-through-the-world kind of glitch, but being left alone, floating helplessly in the void of space is quite possibly the scariest bug I’ve ever encountered.
Thankfully, ꧃Hello Games are currently p🃏atching the game, so hopefully, most of these problems are being addressed as we speak.
Space Is Much Friendlier Than You'd Think
No Man’s Sky Beyond is the culmination of all the things Hello Games said the game would be. The multiplayer additions finally allow players to meet up with one another and partner up as they explore the cold, dark universe. The quality of life enhancements and new gameplay features make the game feel entirely different, and really do improve the entire experience. And I haven't gotten the chance to fool around with it, but you can even play in VR now if you’re fortunate enough to own a headset.
The bugs definitely need to be ironed out, as nothing destroys the immersive experience like suddenly falling through the world, or seeing your newfound lizard-fox-panther friend floating in the air. If that gets fixed, No Man’s Sky Beyond may go down as one🐎 of the best sp෴ace exploration games you can play right now.
4 Out Of 5 Stars
A copy of No Man's Sky Beyond was purchased on PS4 by TheGamer for this review. No Man's Sky Beyond is available now for PC, Xbox One, and PS4.
Lose yourself in a vast sci-fi odyssey as you explore a near-infinite, procedurally generated universe.
Set out from the edge of the Euclid galaxy and carv꧅e out your own interstellar existence in a vast universe teeming with life, danger and near-endless mystery.
No Man's Sky is a hugely-ambitious, heavily-stylised, sci-fi adventure that spans entire galaxies all brought to life with procedural generation. Travel through an endless array of increasingly diverse and dangerous star systems, prospecting for rare materials, trading with alien life, populate planets and searching for clues to the meaning of the universe's mysterious existence.
How you survive is up to you. Assemble entire fleets of dreadnought-class freighters and tear across the universe; build sprawlin൩g habitable bases across planet surfaces, beneath the ground or under the ocean; buy and upgrade your own weapons and star ships and do battle with outlaw space pirates, hostile alien fauna or the mysterious sentinel fleets.&꧙nbsp;
The uni⛦verse is yours to explore - trillions upon trillions of planets, w🐎aiting to be discovered.