August 9, 2016: a date which will live in infamy. No, it didn’t quite ignite a conflict or grind the Earth’s rotation to a halt, but it did, for ꦉa small Guildford, UK-based game developer, seem very much like the beginning of the end. On that day, No Man’s Sky—a game which hꦡad generated so much hype that titles like🐷 Beyond Good and Evil 2 and Half-Life 3 nearly paled in c༺omparison—was released to an audience of soon-to-be-disappointed gamers.

In a now famously unfort🌄unate turn of events, Hello Games would maintain near radio silence as their credibility was decimated by a hoard of angry online consumers. The game was extremely barebones compared to what had previously been shown😼, and accusations of manipulation and deception would very quickly make their way to Hello Games’ head Sean Murray’s doorstep.

“It was,” Murray would comment in an interview after the fact. “The internet is really🏅 good at knowing when somebody has made a mistake.” Yet, Murray’s mistake was more of a bol꧑d faced lie in the minds of many, and the poor quality of No Man’s Sky a🦂t launch would leave plenty of early adopters irrevocably spurned.

Hello Games wouldn’t give up 🙈on the project, though, and No Man’s Sky continued to receive support which would ultimately culminate in the recently-rel♒eased No Man’s Sky NEXT update. This major patch has given plenty of players a reason to 🔴𝓡come back to No Man’s Sky’s cosmos, yet a few core kinks remain which still taint the experien♎ce.

30 Worth Returning: A Helping Hand ⛄

As concurrent updates hܫave continued to add new features, resources, and items to the game over the two-year post-release span, fans have voiced concerns relating to♛ the sheer amount of undocumented content available in-game. For months, it was up to the players to categorize and organize the resources in their inventories. The NEXT update changes this, and every element of crafting material can be found in a alongside blueprints and other helpful tidbits. While some players previously may have been turned off by the game’s relatively hands-off approach to resource management, many꧟ of thes🅺e issues have now been addressed.

29 🌳 Remaining Issues: Random Number Generation ﷺ

No Man’s Sky is, at its core, still ꦉa game about interplanetary exploration. Though it now places an emphasis on multiplayer and toutes a relatively-engaging storyline, Hello Games has still built a survival craf♑ting simulator very much reliant on the which dictate the title’s inner workings. While stumbling upon a resource-rich planet or duking it out with some randomly-generated terrestrial fauna may be fun, it is equal parts frustrating to players who aren’t often afforded these experiences. Space is still a vast, unforgiving vacuum, and many players kno✱w all-too-well the sting of poor RNG.

28 𝔉 Worth Returning: Character Creator ꦫ

One of the most disappointing aspects of No Man’s Sky circa 2016 was the stunning lack of even the smallest amount of character customization. In fact, prior to the NEXT update, the game’s camera was tethered to a first-person perspective, and there was nary a player character model of which to speak. This has all been changed, thankful༒ly, and the addition of a relatively-robust character creation system has come tandem to a. Now players can explore the boundless cosmos as o꧋ne of several different aliens, and they can deck their new creatures out in plenty of different colors and outfits.

27 ⛄ 🧜 Remaining Issues: Save State

Though this quirk has by and large been patched out at this point, a few players are still experiencing issues related to loading saved games. A few foul-ups and issues ar꧋e to be expected for a patch of this size and scope, but it is unfortunate that hours of work and exploration could unceremoniously be. H♈ello Games, to t⛦heir credit, have mostly addressed this issue, though dedicated NMS players may want t♛o take the old adage “save early, save often” to heart for the next c🌌ouple of weeks.

26 ♛ Worth Returning: Cooperative Story Progression

At launch, the story present in No Man’s Sky was by and large considered to be pret𒊎ty underwhelming. Though immense in terms of scope, there was hardly any sort of incentive aside from a vague direction to reach the center of the galaxy, the payoff for which was unimpressive, to say the least. However, though a majority of NMS’s new story beats have been added in pre🔥vious updates, the NEXT update makes the game’s newly-robust campaign . This means that players can squad up and take on the infinite together, and it adds an incredible amount of depth and replayability to✃ a game once thought to be dead in the water.

25 Remaining Issues: Ship Customization🐬

While plenty of players have been boasting about the impressive new fleet system by which explorers may amass an armada of ships for trading or combat purposes, the customization option available for the players own ship are still shockingly limited. In reality, there really is no way to change the cosmetic aesthetics of your ship without the use of a mod or two, and it’s a disappointing oversight given the amount of attention Hello Games has payed to other aspects of their title. Now that other players can join in the fun, it would be nice to allow players to show o🔯ff the🐼ir unique, flashy,. That is,🗹 at the moment, not possible, s🌃till not possible.

24 ꦛ Worth R🤡eturning: Biological Horror

No Man’s Sky was essentially devoid of any meaningful PvE encounters at launch, much to the chagrin of many early adopters. However, this has been amended in the two years since initial release, and Hello Game’s universe is now teeming with interesting and unique formsꦯ of life. M💛ost captivating would be the new xenomorph-like monstrosities the game refers to as “.” These strange extraterrestrial entities will swarm unsuspecting players and overrun those unprepared ꧒to fight. Not ﷽only do these weird beings pose a significant threat, but they add a much-needed level of intrigue and fear to the game.

23 Remaining Issues: This Place Seems🌊 Familiar…

One major complaint which persists prior to the NEXT update would be the issues of🎃 biome variety. The game has been updated to deliver more interesting and varied terrain, though that doesn’t change the fact that, on the whole, there really are only a players may come across. No Man’s Sky veterans will quickly become familiar with everything the game’s random generation can develop, and, despite offering a major im𝐆provement to the base game’s mechan🌺ics, things can still sometimes become dull in a hurry.

22 🐬 Worth Returning: Ancient Aliens

One of the most interesting new in🐈clusions to planetary geometry may be the new ancient alien relics p𝓡layers may stumble across. These strange monoliths are beautiful while suggesting a faint hint of mystery and fear. Lucky players may be able to scavenge some , and they break up the monotony of coming across crashed spaceship after crashed spaceship as was the case in previous iterations of t💦his cosmically kaleidoscopic space extravaganza. New players would do wel♛l to keep an eye out for these things.

21 Remaining Issues: Seen O💝ne Alien, Seen ‘Em All

Though vastly improved from the freakshow present 🎃in the initial version of the game, No Man’s Sky still doesn’t offer a ton in the way of terrestrial animal variety. Players had tons of fun jeering at the bizarre monstrosities the game’s e🅷ngine would cobble together when it ಌwas first released, and, while much less laughable these days, we aren’t quite at the present in the 2014 E3 demo. Just about every No Man’s Sky player has subtly been hoping fo🍨r that awe-inspiring moment of ꦕbiological discovery akin to that scene from the first Jurassic Park movie. For many, though, that just ༒hasn’t happe💎ned yet.