No Man’s Sky is the game that keeps on giving, having climbed out of an initially-rocky launch back in 2016 and gone from strength to strength ever since, across more than 30 free updates and counting.
And this newest update might just be one of the most exciting yet, with the arrival of No Man’s Sky: Worlds Part I ushering in some massive overhauls that make the game look entirely new again. Worlds Part 1 is almost a complete refresh of the game’s worlds, bringing new flora and fauna, new gameplay mechanics, and brand-new engine technology to drastically enhance the experience and bring a stark new level of variety to the universe.
One of the most immediately-impressive new details is the updated water tech, which allows for things like waves that react dynamically planetary weather patterns, reflections and even the ability for ships to land on water. This’ll have a huge effect on water planets, not only visually but in how you navigate and interact with them. Clouds have had a similar treatment with new tech enabling more detailed skies that change according to weather conditions.
Add to that updated shadows, new atmospherics and weather like wind, new mech gameplay and crafting, armoured bugs and heaps more, and there’s a hell of a lot going on here. With new planetary conditions comes new creatures, too, and a new Expedition supposedly inspired by Starship Troopers (hello, Helldivers 2 fans!) that’ll take players on a tour of a lot of what’s new in Worlds Part 1.
Hello Games’ founder and most public figure, Sean Murray, reveals in an accompanying Deep Dive video that the team has taken a lot of lessons learned and technology developed in making its next game, Light No Fire, and “brought it back from the future” to No Man’s Sky, which I think is pretty neat. And given the “Part 1” in the title, there’s no doubt a whole lot more to come.
You can check out the full patch notes for No Man’s Sky: Worlds Part I right here as well as the Deep Dive trailer below:
