No Man's Sky News

Hello!

We are excited to announce the release of the latest major update to No Man’s Sky today. We’re calling it the ORIGINS update and it’s out now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC (including VR). Full patch notes are available here

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It’s hard to believe that it’s been 4 years since we watched people all around the world wake up on their first planet in our near-infinite universe and embark on their voyage of exploration. That first planet might have been dangerous, barren, or teeming with life. For sure though, it would have been an intriguing alien world filled with curious flora and fauna, never seen before - not even by us, the developer.



That’s why it is so exciting to release Origins today. For the first time we are breathing new life and variety into that universe in a significant way, adding new worlds to explore, new planets never before seen, new life to discover.

For a surprising number of people, their voyage already has them spending hundreds and even thousands of hours journeying to the next horizon, the next planet, the next star system, propelled by the desire to see what was around the next corner. In fact that universe we created day one has already provided hundreds of millions of hours of entertainment across the globe.



No Man’s Sky has been updated over a dozen times since those early beginnings. The game has expanded in almost every direction to accommodate almost every play style: base building, VR, multiplayer, trading, community missions, exocraft, expanded lore... This year alone we have already introduced living ships, mechs, abandoned freighters and cross-platform play.

At No Man’s Sky’s core though, beats the heart of an experience which has never really lost its main existential purpose: a voyage of discovery, of exploration. For all the updates, the universe we have all been exploring together has largely remained untouched.



It is only fitting therefore that, for our major update of the year, and in the lineage of the larger annual updates of ATLAS RISES (2017), NEXT (2018) and BEYOND (2019), we return to that core principle.

But how do you radically change a universe where so many have made their homes, built elaborate bases, named and discovered their own planets?

Our solution is to birth entirely new planets into the universe, with vistas never possible before. Fly your Starship through towering mountains and epic chasms vastly larger than ever. Survive lightning storms, fires and hostile weather systems. Discover new creature behaviours like fauna that land and take to flight, or huge alien sandworms. Walk beneath new giant flora that changes from day through night. Visit buildings of an entirely new scale, containing new lore and much, much more.



Whether you’re a veteran traveller who has been to the centre of our universe and back before, or whether you’ve yet to take your first tentative step on that first planet, NO MAN’S SKY: ORIGINS represents a major moment in our journey so far. Why not come see what there is to discover?

Our journey continues.

Sean

ABOVE: No Man's Sky Origin Update trailer, also on YouTube. As many players have already guessed, the No Man's Sky Origins update arriving today is largely focused on adding more variety to Hello Games' space sandbox. But the update sounds like it's even bigger than fans have guessed. Hello Games says the No Man's Sky Origins update "effectively doubles the variety in the game" and while you're exploring the galaxy you'll find all-new kinds of flora and fauna, plus lots of new planets and planet types. In the trailer above you can see a few examples of creatures that look truly different from the types we've seen before. There are also what appear to be solar systems with binary stars. Extremely cool! There's an enormous floating metal orb above a structure and I have no idea what the heck it is. And then there's that giant sandworm at the end of the trailer. I would definitely call that particular creature a major change in variety. Origins is also doing some exciting things when it comes to weather. Currently in No Man's Sky, if the planet you're on is experiencing bad weather (toxic storms, acid rain), that weather is planet-wide. If you want to avoid it, you have to leave the planet entirely. Origins is adding more realistic localized weather that doesn't hit the entire planet at once, but instead acts like a real weather system, moving across and around the planet. And there are special weather events as well, including tornadoes and meteor showers. I spoke to Hello Games founder Sean Murray the other day who explained how these new weather events will work. "We don't want to say everything that we've added," Murray said when we spoke earlier this week, "but to give you an idea, some of the weather effects are beneficial, so there are actually things where there is a risk-reward element to them. They are detrimental to you, but they are also exciting, because you can get certain resources during those weather events." Meteor showers, for example, sound extremely hazardous, but it may be well worth investigating the area they're landing in. It sounds bit like visiting planets where the sentinels are automatically hostile. Yeah, you might get blown up, but you could also escape with a cargo hold full of expensive resources. And if you're concerned that some of the new planetary features, like volcanoes, might mess up the planet you call home or disrupt the base you've spent hours working on, it sounds like you won't need to worry. Murray says Hello Games has taken great pains to make sure existing player bases won't be disturbed. "We didn't want to change the terrain of existing planets," Murray said. "So the idea that we came up with was to introduce new planets, and to increase the diversity of the universe within the universe." The changes in Origin will be "additional" rather than something that overwrites the planets that people have been building on and inhabiting. "The vast, vast majority of players' progress is completely intact," Murray said. There's lots more in the update, too. "Wild robots" may be found wandering the surface of certain planets. Massive, looming archival alien buildings will contain "data, treasure, and directions to long-forgotten ruins." Swamps, marshes and insect life may be found on fertile planets, and abandoned anomalous buildings can be found on dead, barren planets. And as always, the update comes with a number of game improvements, like new photo mode features and UI upgrades. No Man's Sky's Origins update arrives today. Check out some more screenshots below, and you can visit the official site for the complete patch notes.

Hello,

Next week Hello Games will be releasing an update to No Man’s Sky. We’re calling it "ORIGINS".

Detailed patch notes will follow, along with next week's release.



Four years ago we announced FOUNDATION, our first major update for No Man's Sky, we promised "It won't be our largest update, but it is the start of something". Those words were true at the time, and they ring true for Origins. We called it Origins because it is the beginning of something new, as No Man's Sky continues to grow and evolve.

BEYOND came out last year, bringing VR and hugely expanded Online play, and since then we have focused on releasing more regular updates. SYNTHESIS, BYTEBEAT, LIVING SHIP, EXO MECH, CROSSPLAY, and DESOLATION have been some of our most popular, surprising and transformative updates - leading No Man’s Sky to have its biggest year to date.

We know there is a huge appetite in the community for No Man's Sky content, and the team has worked our socks off this year to deliver in difficult circumstances. We have been quiet, but we are always listening and focusing on improving the game that our team loves and feels so passionately about.

This update will be another small step in a longer journey. We hope you can join us.

Thank you,
Sean

Hello,

Being a small dot amongst the stars can bring a sense of awe and wonder, but we've always wanted to explore a little more those feelings of fear and dread that come from being alone in the depths of space. Terror in the face of the unknown, or the dawning realisation that you're treading in the footsteps of those who met a lonely end at the edge of the universe - it's a rich science fiction tradition, and one not really touched on in No Man's Sky - until now.

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The Desolation Update adds abandoned freighters to explore to No Man’s Sky, along with a very different style of gameplay. Alone or in groups, players can breach the airlock and explore the hazardous, procedurally generated, interiors of these derelict capital ships. The only trace of the crew is in logs they’ve left behind, a mix of procedurally generated and hand-written text that means each vessel has its own unique story for you to piece together.



The shattered interiors are also rich with salvage, including otherwise unobtainable upgrades for your own capital ship. Technology you retrieve still has the marks of the ship you took it from, meaning your own freighter will now reflect something of your journey.

But in the panic to flee the ship, hazardous items have spilled, defense systems have been scrambled and environment controls have begun to fail. Some vessels may even have been overrun by hostile alien lifeforms... You may want to take some friends along to increase your chances of making it out alive.



The Desolation update also brings improvements and balance changes to weapons and enemies for a faster, more dynamic combat experience. Weapon balance, effects and feel have been tweaked to provide not just a more engaging combat experience on these alien infested frigates, but across the game as well.



The full patch notes are here, and they contain a huge list of quality of life improvements too.

It has been extremely gratifying for us to see a huge number of new players flood into the game since we entered the GamePass program last month. It’s particularly exciting to know that, with the cross-play update, those players were finally able to join friends on other platforms. Unifying our community and all their in-game creations on one network was a phenomenal achievement by our small technical team. It’s been a real surprise too to see No Man’s Sky sitting above the likes of Red Dead as the most played game on GamePass.

As ever, the team has also continued to work on more updates. We have several more significant releases planned for the year, and we’re excited to share more news about them when the time comes.

Our journey continues.

Sean