As No Man’s Sky nears its eight anniversary, it’s clear the open-world survival crafting sim isn’t slowing down. A cavalcade of free updates continues to rework the sport from what it as soon as was at launch, and the most recent of these isn’t any completely different. Right now, Hey Video games revealed Worlds Half 1, a whole overhaul of planetary climate that’s dropping alongside a serious balancing patch and a brand new expedition that may see the neighborhood collectively combat towards the specter of alien bugs. Anybody else prepared for some No Man’s Helldivers?
“After we began No Man’s Sky, we needed folks to really feel like they’d stepped right into a science fiction e-book cowl,” director Sean Murray wrote in an e-mail saying Worlds Half 1. “To deliver us nearer to that we’ve needed to create plenty of new expertise.” He mentioned that expertise will now make doable issues within the recreation that “the neighborhood has nearly given up hope on ever occurring.”
As an alternative of a common reset as some predicted, Hey Video games is asking this a “common refresh.” Right here’s a abstract of a number of the main modifications to how No Man’s Sky will generate planets and what gamers expertise on them:
- New water expertise for waves and reflections
- Waves are dynamic and can react to wind
- Ships can land on water
- New cloud tech for detailed skies with altering climate circumstances
- Volumetrics and atmospherics on planet surfaces for rolling fog, rain, blizzards, lava sparks, and different phenomenon
- Climate techniques that work together and develop in actual time as gamers discover
- New biomes and extra creatures to find with extra selection, all of which might turn into pets and mounts
Alongside this overhaul, No Man’s Sky may even be launching a brand new expedition that revolves round preventing alien bugs. Murray describes it as “Starship Troopers impressed” and says gamers’ combat towards these bugs throughout the brand new planets they discover might be “neighborhood pushed” and include a brand new heavy armor mech that has a flame thrower for an arm. It sounds just like the unofficial Helldivers 2 crossover nobody anticipated, and in addition a fantastic concept for a brand new mech stratagem in Arrowhead’s hit shooter.
Murray had been teasing this replace for a number of days, with followers speculating about all of the various things that would nonetheless be added to No Man’s Sky this a few years later. Some hoped for customized area stations, others guessed a whole common reset, and some puzzled if Hey Video games may lastly be able to share extra details about it’s different upcoming undertaking, the fantasy survival RPG Gentle No Fireplace. We didn’t find yourself getting a brand new trailer for that recreation, but it surely did come up in at present’s replace.
“Six months in the past we introduced Gentle No Fireplace,” Murray wrote. “It’s this insanely formidable recreation. Over the past 5 years making recreation, we’ve learnt new issues, and we’re feeding that again into No Man’s Sky. It seems like we’re bringing expertise again from the long run!” That’s successfully one other approach of claiming that the brand new planetary options gamers can now expertise in No Man’s Sky additionally act as a teaser, and doubtlessly an early preview, of what they will count on from the appear and feel of Gentle No Fireplace. The sport doesn’t have a launch date however right here’s hoping we hear extra about it at one of many gaming showcases coming later this 12 months.