No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games has outlined a major update on their blog following their recent announcement. The Foundation Update, which will be the “first of many free updates”, promises to add the foundations of base building. The update comes after a series of unfulfilled promises for continued content patches, as well as No Man’s Sky receiving the nomination for “Biggest Disappointment” on Valve’s Steam Awards.
Three game modes are listed in the update: Normal, Creative and Survival. In contrast to the original “chilled exploration experience” of Normal mode, the latter two will allow players to explore the universe and build a huge base, and immerse themselves in a much more challenging endurance experience respectively.
Base building will give players the chance to find an uninhabited base and create their own outpost, which you can travel to by using Terminus Teleporters in Space Stations. Furthermore, the base can be expanded with storage containers to salvage precious resources and rare products, and should you find a more beautiful location, you can dismantle your previous homestead and receive a full refund on spent resources.
Many other features, including farming, freighters, and the user interface have been tweaked and enhanced. Additionally, Hello Games has introduced new biome and star specific recourse types, with players now being able to craft Advanced Mining Lasers and Hazmat gauntlets through base building, and using them to obtain rare resources.
According to Eurogamer, the size of the 2.7GB Foundation Update roughly corresponds to the size of the full game. Check out the complete list of patches in Hello Games’ Foundation Update video.