Giving No Man’s Sky Another Chance

It’s been just over a year since the disaster release of No Man’s Sky. The promises Hello Games wanted for the game wasn’t fulfilled, in doing so, it enraged the community leading to death threats, refunds, and finally leading the team to complete silence. After a mess of a launch, Hello Games are quietly releasing updates that fundamentally changing the game with new features.

There already has been three updates, The Foundation update which added new game modes, base building, improved UI, and new resources and technology. The second update was called Path Finder, it improves visuals, online base sharing, on-land vehicles, camera mode, and more. The most recent update was substantial, Atlas Rises – this update adds multiplayer (joint exploration), a new 30-hour story, new worlds, terrain manipulation, portals, and space combat.

After playing in the first week of launch, I enjoyed what I’ve played, but had little substance to keep me engaged. Now that there’re improvements to pretty much everything, it seems like the best time to jump in and find all the new additions to No Man’s Sky.

Putting five hours into a new save, made me realized why I had a good experience during the first week of launch. Exploring new planets and discovering creatures is a magical feeling I don’t get with other games. The survival side of the game is still a pain to navigate. The tutorial teaches the basics of the technologies and what fuels it. The UI hasn’t changed much, which is a shame because it’s difficult to parse – this was one of the things that I thought would be improved.

The survival aspect of the game feels like a wall that needs to be overcome, this gives me a sense of progression – but for some players its’ about exploring worlds and finding new creatures, and not about surviving.

Unlike launch, the first opening minutes gives you a choice to follow the story or roam free, I didn’t see that option when I started a new game. Instead you can do both. This time going through the story has me intrigued about the anomalies I’ve found. A giant wreckage of a spaceship was an exciting sight. It might not have anything inside, but the perception of having another intelligent lifeform in a game of loneliness gives another sense of wonder other than traveling through galaxies or finding new creatures.

I didn’t get to experience the new additions of base building as you need to find a specific base to build upon. From what I’ve heard – building a base is useful for survival. You can recruit aliens to become your shop keeper, or make an in-door garden giving you resources without traveling. 

Another feature that was added was a form of multiplayer known as “Joint Exploration”. I say “form”, because it’s not full on co-op or anything like that. Instead, when meeting with other players you’ll see a bright orb in their place. Interaction between players are minimal, when you and another player interact with each a flag is planted that states who you met and when you met them. There is also proximity voice chat if the other player has a microphone.

This isn’t what players thought about when talking about multiplayer in No Man’s Sky – players wanted full online functionality. Seeing player’s exosuits, home bases, and co-op options. However, I would never have thought Hello Games would implement multiplayer of any sense. This is just the start of synchronize co-op in No Man’s Sky, I’m looking forward for what’s to come in multiplayer.

--

While No Man’s Sky is expansive, it’s never going to be the game everyone wanted to be. Because of the broken promises it led the game to failure – at least at launch. We knew that this game wasn’t finished and knew that over time I would get better and it did. What was up in the air was if fans -- both positive and negative would be curious enough to try the game again. From what I’m reading and seeing around the internet, Atlas Rises is an update that brought good-will to both No Man’s Sky and Hello Games.