WARNING: No Man’s Sky updated to 1.03 and there’s SPOILERS in this article. If you don’t want the experience spoiled for you, click away now.
The tale of No Man’s Sky is an emotional rollercoaster. When the team proudly revealed their game had gone gold, one would’ve thought that it would be smooth sailing by the time launch day came around. But then recently someone had acquired an early copy of the game, and shared their experiences online before the public had a chance to see for themselves. That started a flurry of responses from the gaming community, reacting to No Man’s Sky based on what these early previews had revealed.
We’ve spent years filling No Man’s Sky with surprises. You've spent years waiting. Please don't spoil it for yourself 🙁
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) July 29, 2016
However there was still more to come. As it was revealed by Sean Murray that there was going to be continuous updates to the game.
Today he revealed the first of these in detail, via a post on their website. Again, there are SPOILERS below, so this is your last chance to click away before I talk about them. They’ll be below this No Man’s Sky trailer embed.
Alright. Here we go.
This update will be available by Monday August 8th for Press Review, and it’ll come at launch for the public. There are three “paths” you can follow and your choices have an effect with what you experience in the game. The entire Universe has been changed, with planets and environments revised in order to create greater variety earlier on. It also makes galaxies 10 times larger. Planets can now have dead moons, and they’ve added low atmosphere and extremely hazardous planets among the mix (hazards = blizzards, dust storms, etc). Day and night have more variety due to the new more accurate atmosphere system, and the effects of planet rotation have been reduced. Terrain generation has intensified to to make larger caves, and cause more interesting sea beds due to the effects of erosion.
When it comes to player related gameplay changes, your suit and ship inventories now store more resources per slot in order to help encourage more exploration and trading. In addition, trading itself has been expanded to include wants and needs for star systems and planets. You can feed creatures on the planets you encounter, and in return they’ll have benefits to give you in return. This is helpful because the survival element of planetary exploration is now more deadly and dangerous.
Again, it’s worth reading the entire change log yourself in order to see what’s new and different in version 1.03. But Murray also stuck something in at the end, that’s guaranteed to excite the community.
Next up we’re adding the ability to build bases and own giant space freighters. Temporal AA and my new cloud rendering tech should be coming soon too. It will really change the game again, and enhance it visually.
No Man’s Sky comes out on August 9th for PS4 and August 12th for PC. To keep up to date with the game, check out their website, Twitter, and Facebook.
