Back in the mists of 2021, No Man's Sky revealed its very own Normandy SR1 space frigate. "The Normandy in No Man's Sky?" you cry. "Why, that's a Mass Effect vessel. Some mistake here surely?" 1) My name's not Shirley, and 2) Indeed it is a Mass Effect ship, but HelloGames struck a time-limited deal with BioWare to create a version for their own space sim.
"Blast, if only I'd noticed this at the time and acquired one," you mourn. "Ah, so many years I have wasted." Be of good cheer, my friend, for No Man's Sky has a Normandy once again, just in time for the latest N7 Day of assorted Mass Effect celebrations. For the next two weeks, you'll be able to get a-hold of it by way of a revised version of 2021's Beachhead Expedition. Tray-tray, away!
]]>Back in July, No Man's Sky reached version 5.0 with the Worlds update, which refreshed its planetary generation to introduce more variety alongside more detailed water, clouds, and weather. We didn't write about it at the time, because I suppose re-writing the very fabric of the galaxy seemed small-time.
Today's new update, however, adds fishing, and I can't not write about that.
]]>With an effectively infinite universe to fill in No Man’s Sky, developers Hello Games have certainly risen to the challenge of trying to fill it with as much stuff as they possibly can over the last near-decade, still managing to add major new features and modes eight years on from the sci-fi exploration game’s release. Next update Adrift is taking things right the way back, though, by emptying the expansive cosmos of almost everything except you, your ship and planets to visit.
]]>Is there a developer more fiendishly dedicated to giving fans endless returns on their initial investment than No Man’s Sky studio Hello Games? It’s not a competition, mind, but they’d surely be a strong contender if it were. Despite dropping the Omega update just last month, and unveiling fantasy survival game Light No Fire at last year’s Geoffies, the team are back once more with the Orbital update. It looks to be a sizeable one too, with ship customisation and a “complete space station overhaul” among the new features. You can read the full patch notes here. I hope it includes a note about how much sleep they’re all getting, because I’m starting to worry.
]]>Hello Games describe No Man's Sky's latest Omega update as being geared towards newcomers and "lapsed players looking for a way back in". Hey, they're talking about me! I haven't played the wide-eyed space game since before the pandemic, partly because I only own the PS4 version and now that I'm RPS news editor, I'm not allowed to touch consoles any more. Seriously, they burn my skin on contact. Anyway, let's have a gander at the trailer.
]]>Hello Games have announced Light No Fire, the Guildford, UK-based developer's most ambitious new game since 2016's space sim No Man's Sky. In development for roughly five years so far, it's an exploration-driven fantasy experience with building mechanics, a range of curious mythological creatures, and a procedurally generated open world that is apparently Earth-like in both geography and scale. Hello have just screened a trailer at this year's Game Awards. Earlier this week, they invited me down to their Guildford offices for a quick, informal chat about the game, which I am going to characterise as Fable meets Microsoft Flight Simulator.
]]>The Electronic Wireless Show podcast returns to one of our recent previous messes to discuss Payday 3. More specifically, we look at the post-launch changes the devs are making in an effort to improve matchmaking and wait times. Specifically, we use this to think about games that have changed their reputations after a rocky start, what with Cyberpunk 2077's recent 2.0 update. What are the circumstances that allow games to do that? Why are they such outliers? How do we think about reviews in the context of something like No Man's Sky?
We've also been playing some big recent games, so tune in for discussions of Assassin's Creed Mirage, a call for pirate games, and a hilarious misunderstanding about Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor.
]]>Starfield’s success might be making headlines lately, but another space game also seems to be reaping the benefits of Bethesda’s much-anticipated sci-fi epic: No Man’s Sky.
]]>No Man's Sky developers recently teased its next update, titled Echoes. It's out now and it adds a new race of robots, expanded space combat, and a series of story quests that tie many of its new features together.
]]>It has now been seven years since No Man's Sky released, which means there have been seven years of post-release updates. In a trailer released to celebrate the anniversary, Hello Games teased the next update by giving it a name: Echoes.
]]>Hot (weeks) off the back of Sons Of The Forest and the Resident Evil 4 remake coming out, we're celebrating your bestest best, most favourite survival games this month. Your votes have been counted and tallied, and your accompanying words of praise and affection matched accordingly. But which game has survived to make it to the top of the pile? Come and find out as we count down your 25 favourite survival games of all time.
]]>Universe-spanning survival sim No Man’s Sky is releasing its 4.1 Fractal Update today, bringing along a new Expedition, tons of accessibility options, a VR overhaul, and much more. Developers Hello Games have updated the game so consistently their launch woes are a distant memory, sent to a faraway galaxy. Since then, No Man’s Sky has become a not just a space exploration game, but a city management sim and a generally nice place to chill with your odd alien pets, all in one package.
]]>One No Man’s Sky player has made a standalone app that lets you construct bases by moving, snapping together, and colouring parts ready to slot straight into the game. Technical artist Charlie Banks has popped the base-building app up on NexusMods, and has used it to create a massive robot that looks a little like the Iron Giant squatting down. Banks compares the base-building app’s simplicity to Oskar Stålberg’s procedurally generated hamlet-crafter Townscaper, although it seems a bit more complicated than that game.
]]>No Man's Sky has expanded a huge amount beyond its original vision, and last year developers Hello Games introduced a new kind of seasonal update: Expeditions. These are time-limited activities with one-off awards, but although this year's fourth and final Expedition finished back in September, all of 2022's Expeditions are making a shortened, end-of-year return for anyone who missed them first time out.
]]>Sci-fi survival sim No Man’s Sky sees the launch of its next major update today, and it’s about making things easier to do and doing them the way you want them. Key to this are custom game modes, auto-saves, dynamic difficulty, and inventory streamlining. There’s also a new relaxed mode for the particularly chilled among us. Watch the update trailer below for a rundown, and some trippy space visuals.
]]>The latest free No Man’s Sky update is out today, and it’s a good job Hello Games called the thing Endurance. It takes some serious stamina to scroll through the patch notes. Looks like it might be worth perusing all the way through them though, with this 3.94 update to the game majorly reworking freighter bases and shipping in some NPC crew members to populate them with. This crew will even share their thoughts as they’re wandering about. See for yourself in the trailer below.
]]>Yesterday tech journalist Alex Hern, who has been making comparatively gentle fun of the crypto crash, pointed out that he didn't Tweet about bitcoin in the boom times "because it wasn't funny then." So, after we posted yesterday about a crypto fan who very shoddily stole Itch and for some reason tagged Itch's founder in a tweet about it, allow me to bring you the news that some No Man's Sky players have come up with what I think is the most useful application of a crypto currency I've seen. And it works because it is deliberately valueless.
]]>Nvidia DLAA (Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing) is more of a niche prospect than its upscaler cousin DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), though it shares the same ultimate goal of making your PC games look sharper. Like DLSS, DLAA uses a dash of AI brainpower to stitch together frames with more detail than conventional anti-aliasing techniques like TAA and MSAA – only with DLAA, there’s no upscaling involved. That means no performance gains, but for those with sufficiently powerful Nvidia RTX GPUs, potentially superior image quality at all resolutions. Even better than DLSS, mayhaps.
]]>Hello Games’ intergalactic wandering simulator No Man’s Sky has gone roguelike for its seventh free expedition update, Leviathan. With a name like that you’d expect something pretty big and, lo, the space whales have arrived. You’ll be able to recruit these leviathans for your capital ship’s frigate fleet, and even keep a baby version as a pet inside your base. Witness them in the trailer below.
]]>Hello Games today launched yet another huge free No Man's Sky update, raising the skull 'n' crossbones with the Outlaws update. It focuses on three main things: being a pirate and doing naughty things; reworking and prettifying spaceship combat; and recruiting and training a squadron of NPC pilots to fly alongside you. But oh, there's so much more. Get a glimpse in the new trailer, below.
]]>Sandbox space sim No Man's Sky today launched yet another huge free update, this time focused on expanding and overhauling violence in numerous ways. Codenamed Sentinel, update 1.8 adds plenty of new types of Sentinel enemies to bash and adds new weapons and such. But more importantly, it lets you have new robot friends of your own by putting AI into your mech or even building your own wee drone buddy.
]]>At this point, it has become a cliché to say that space sim No Man's Sky has come a long way since its initial release. And yet, is there any better example of its long development journey than the sandworms? Initially shown in pre-release trailers only to be cut from the release version, they were finally added in some recent updates. Now the most recent update and seasonal event adds new sandworm varieties, including rideable sandworms. The worm has indeed turned.
]]>No Man's Sky has gone and outdone itself again. Earlier this month, studio head Sean Murray called the Frontiers update "a missing piece of the sci-fi fantasy that we’ve always wanted to add," and I admit I didn't pick up on the hint. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't that the Frontiers update would add huge planetary settlements, tons of new base building pieces, Sentinel settlement raids, and the ability to become arbiter and overseer of the local settlement too. No Man's Sky's update 3.6 has launched today with all that and a lot more.
]]>At what milestone do we begin contextualizing the age of a game with "do you want to feel old?" If it's five years, well, do you? Because No Man's Sky launched five years ago today. The space exploration sim has celebrated its anniversary with a look back on all its prior major updates and expansions as well as a tiny peek into the future. If for some reason you thought that Hello Games were done doing major updates to their procedural universe, you thought wrong. The next update is called Frontiers and is coming sometime soon.
]]>Space exploring sim No Man's Sky is now letting you get off the ground, and not just in your ships anymore. You're now able to tame and ride low-flying space creatures. Take a gander at that silly flying space squid and tell me you don't want to hop on one right now. Hello Games have also made a pretty sizable visual update to the universe, but I'm honestly just excited about flying ten feet off the ground on my weirdest new pals. How silly and rad.
]]>No Man's Sky's most recent expedition sounds like a toughy, but stick with it, because it's hiding an excellent Easter egg at the end. Hello Games have revealed that players who complete the Beachhead expedition before May 31st will be met with Mass Effect's Normandy SR1 arriving in style right over their heads. You get to keep it too - Shepard's ship will be a permanent part of your No Man's Sky frigate fleet.
Man, I always thought No Man's Sky wasn't for me, then they add something super cool like this.
]]>VR fans with Nvidia RTX graphics cards can now enjoy the benefits of Nvidia's performance-boosting DLSS tech in some of today's best VR games, thanks to a swathe of new features included in today's GeForce Game Ready driver update. No Man's Sky, mechanic simulator Wrench and survival shooter Into The Radius are the first three VR games to support DLSS, with Nvidia claiming you'll be able to get double the performance in No Man's Sky on Ultra settings to help you maintain a smooth 90fps on an Oculus Quest 2 with an RTX 3080.
]]>Last month, space exploration craft 'em up No Man's Sky launched its new "expeditions" game mode. Expeditions are limited time adventures though, so the first one has come to a close and the second one, called Beachhead, has launched today. I've definitely not landed on a beach though. This second expedition has stranded me, and everyone else, a long and frozen walk away from our ships. This should get interesting.
]]>As it does, No Man's Sky has expanded its universe with a biggo new update. This time, it's beefed up with a brand new game mode called Expeditions. A bit like a seasonal event, Expeditions give players a bunch of time-limited goals and set them off along the same path together. They seem like they'll channel the energy of some massive community scavenger hunt, everyone knocking around close to one another as they zip from goal to goal, which actually sounds like good fun. The first Expedition has just kicked off and is set to run for two months.
]]>Giant spacey sandbox game No Man's Sky has always had weird and wonderful alien creatures hanging out on its planets, and now you can make them be your best friends. Today, Hello Games dropped the Companions Update, letting players tame, adopt and breed the game's many bizarre beasties. You can feed them, train them, and they'll even follow you around like silly little (or sometimes very big) space Pokémon.
]]>Ultrawide gaming monitors can seem excessive compared to regular 16:9 gaming screens, especially when their demanding resolutions often require powerful and expensive graphics cards to make the most of them. Once you try one, though, there's no going back. I've been a big fan of ultrawide gaming monitors for years now, as their extra screen space not only makes them great for juggling multiple desktop windows, but supported PC games also look uttery fantastic on them - and to prove it, I've put together this list of the best ultrawide games on PC.
]]>There's never been a better time to get into survival games on PC, as the recent revival of the genre means Steam is now awash in some truly great games, both in early access and in full release. There are more arriving every year, too, which is why we've done the hard work for you and ranked the very best survival games to dive into today. Fair warning - there are some early access games on this list, which mean they might be a little janky early on. Give them the time they deserve, though, and you'll find they often blossom into some truly great games over subsequent updates. We've only included the very best and most complete-feeling survival games on this list, though, so you can rest assured that every game here will leave you hungry for more. It's by no means exhaustive, but it should give you a nice selection of wolf-taming, base-building, carrot-picking action to choose from.
]]>With a new generation of consoles boldly coming our week, No Man's Sky is the latest game to announce a makeover update that'll benefit us playing on PC too. While consoleers will see the most dramatic changes as they jump into new PlayShips and XRockets with oodles more oomph, on PC we should still see more detail in landscapes - particularly running it at Ultra settings. Consoleers will get Next Generation free when they jump system, and it'll be a free update to the space-exploration game on PC too. Here, come look at all these fancier rocks:
]]>No Man’s Sky promised the universe, and delivered a video game. At the time, on the game’s initial release in 2016, it looked like it might be a reputation from which Hello Games could never recover. Yet in the four years since they’ve worked and worked and worked, releasing update after update, building an expanding and iterating, even reinventing, without ever charging early adopters an extra penny. Goodness me they’re getting closer to actually delivering a universe.
With the most recent update, Origins, No Man’s Sky is so damned close to being the game I’ve always wished it could be. And perhaps far more importantly, it feels so damned close to being a bunch of other games all manner of other people wish it could be.
]]>In 2013, No Man's Sky released a trailer that showed some big beefy sandworms. But, when the game released in 2016, there was not a sandworm in sight. Hello Games decided the glory of the sandworms was too much for us mere mortals. But today, it all changes. The sandworms cometh in No Man's Sky's massive 3.0 Origins update, which also adds billions of planets, loads of flora and fauna, weather systems and so, so much more.
]]>No Man's Sky is in for yet another update to its giant spacefaring simulation sometime next week, Hello games say. They've shared the title for the new update and hinted that it's the beginning of some big new piece of the game, but don't appear to be sharing more until the update and its patch notes drop next week. That won't stop me from taking some guesses based on the new artwork though, now will it?
]]>Whatever anyone thought of space simulation No Man's Sky when it launched—or now, several years and updates later—it can be said without question that it shot for the stars. Whole procedural planets can be explored, bases built, ships outfitted, and more. Their next project after the universe-size simulation was a small puzzle adventure called The Last Campfire that just launched last week. As for what comes next, Hello Games founder Sean Murray says that the studio is headed back into the thick of it with another "huge, ambitious game like No Man’s Sky."
]]>The sci-fi vision of No Man's Sky is mostly exploration and excitement, about seeing what procedurally-generated wonders might be on the other side of the next jump. The 'Desolation' update, released today, adds a touch more sci-fi horror as it sends players into derelict and alien-infested spaceships. These procedurally-generated freighter wrecks adrift in space have new loot to salvage, a bit like Space Hulk but without the fascists. Here, watch this trailer to see some of the spookies you'll potentially meet.
]]>The spacetime barriers between systems will fall this week in No Man's Sky when cross-platform multiplayer arrives in a free update. Hello Games today announced Windows, Xbox, and PlayStation spacemen will be able to play together from Thursday the 11th. The sandbox space potter 'em up will arrive on Xbox Game Pass tomorrow too, both for PC and Xbone, so you might get to mingle with a whole lot more spacepals.
]]>No Man's Sky has received a number of transformative updates since its initial launch, including multiplayer, base building and VR support, but I think this is the one I find most exciting. The Exo Mech update, out now, adds mechs. Really cool looking mechs, if the trailer below is any indication.
]]>As with many other events in the year of Covid-19, Now Play This—the yearly exhibition on experimental game design—transitioned to a virtual space last weekend. Although not every planned part of the exhibition could be shown off in the new format, they still appeared to get up to some neat stuff that you can now watch back yourself. Game designer Gareth Damian Martin took players on a photography hiking trip in No Man's Sky while Robert Yang leads a tour of Half-Life by way of the Sven Co-op mod.
]]>Since the release of pivotal Half-Life: Alyx, virtual reality has been going from strength to strength, so we've put together a list of the best VR games you can play on PC right now. It's by no means a complete list, as there are now more great VR games than you'll ever have time to play, but if you've just bought yourself a virtual reality headset such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive Cosmos or Valve Index, then these are the VR games you should play first.
]]>There have been a great many games like Minecraft over the past decade. Which is to be expected, because who wouldn't want to capitalise on the runaway mainstream success of the geometric giant, one of the best-selling video games of all time? Minecraft has many interesting facets about it beyond the block bashing mechanics, so we've compiled our list of the best games like it out there right now so you can scratch that familiar mining and crafting itch.
]]>You might have thought the tiny home craze had begun to pass but you'd be quite wrong, it seems. Micro living has launched itself off the face of the earth and straight into space thanks to No Man's Sky players. Folks have now started building tiny cube homes in the space sandbox on collectively-colonized planets.
]]>Video games are great at transporting us to different worlds, but none capture that feeling quite so perfectly as intergalactic space games - and 2023 looks set to be one of the biggest years for space games yet, with the launch of Starfield, Homeworld 3 and more all on the horizon. But what games have gone before them and staked their claim already on the dusty planet surface known as 'Best Space Games'? We reveal all below, with our carefully curated list of all the best space games you can play on PC right now. Whether you're a budding space cruiser captain, a wannabe space conqueror or an intrepid space-faring explorer, there's a space game for you.
]]>No Man's Sky continues to grow and now it's grown something properly alive. It's an egg that hatches into a sentient ship. Sorry, am I reading that right? Yup, the spacefaring crafting simulation game now has ships that are alive and you pilot them from inside their apparently spacious cockpit heads. Where's the brain at, though? The Living Ship update is adding some other organic stuff to the universe and NPCs that can hail you from space.
]]>According to Hello Games, players spend a lot of time designing their bases in No Man's Sky these days. They say a frequent player request was for the ability to add sounds or music to their planetary homes. Apparently one of the coders at Hello Games was quite into the idea and integrated a system for programatically generating music. Players can leave the algorithmic music as is or use the new ByteBeat device to edit it themselves. Now you can invite your friends over for a dance party set to spacey chip tunes and create an in-game light show to accompany it.
]]>When Hello Games announced last week that their next update would improve nearly every part of No Man's Sky in some way, they weren't trading in hyperbole. The now-live Synthesis update squashes bugs and smooths out base building, sure. But the marquee additions that elevate it above mere housekeeping include the ability to salvage your ship for parts, carry a handful of multi-tools on your person, and grind 'n' combine elements within your handy space backpack.
]]>The intrepid team of interstellar architects at Hello Games have already announced another update to No Man's Sky. Anyone hoping for something the size and impact of August's Beyond will need to ease off the hype-r drive (ugh): Synthesis, as founder Sean Murray called it, looks to be a bundle of "polish and small quality of life improvements" aimed at smoothing your experience traveling among the stars.
]]>Everything you thought you knew to be true has been undermined by the Great Revelation. Please read on to learn about your new role in society, and how this affects the games you will be allowed to play.
]]>URGENT: Disparaging words have been said about the game you like by people who like the other game you don't like.
]]>I won't pretend to understand what a Stabilised Reality Glitch is in spacefaring planet-hopper No Man's Sky, but when I see a bunch of them gathered together on podiums in a remote interplanetary museum, I will say: "cool". A player has done just that, bringing each of the rare trophy items to a minimalist monument and placing them on display, like some sort of curator of alien artefacts. That's neat.
]]>Why, what's this? Oh I say, a Steam Charts you say? How intriguing.
]]>I am on a quest to make a chocolate cake. Not a real one – I could do that in half an hour downstairs. No, this is a No Man's Sky cake; an item which has arrived in the game after the Beyond update as part of a new food crafting system. After carting refined flour (which I crafted from Heptaploid Wheat), churned butter (Wild Milk), bittersweet cocoa (Impulse Beans) and processed sugar (Sweet Root) around the galaxy map for days I gave up on trial and error and consulted the wiki. Turns out I need Creature Eggs.
Prior to Beyond, the thing which kept me exploring No Man's Sky was the photo mode. I'd bounce from planet to planet, solar system to solar system in search of stunning vistas and weird creatures to record. This time, as a result of the food crafting, I've found myself more engrossed in the game itself rather than its aesthetic, seeking out ingredients and unexpected combinations.
]]>Hi, it's me! Yeah! No, nothing's wrong, all's good. I was just calling to see if you wanted some Steam Charts? ... STEAM CHARTS ... Yeah, that's right. No, no it's not. You don't? Oh, um, I already sent them over.
]]>No Man's Sky Beyond is the latest free update to the once-disastrous-but-now-actually-quite-good survival adventure title from Hello Games. And, true to form, it's an ambitious one, adding no less than full VR support, No Man's Sky multiplayer, and a host of other changes and new features.
There's 3 updates' worth of content packed into this one package according to Hello Games (not to mention a fair few bugs and crashes that Hello Games are scrambling to address): read on for a breakdown of No Man's Sky Beyond, from full patch notes to breakdowns of all the new features and changes you'll find waiting for you.
]]>I was hoping to try No Man’s Sky in VR, but my current holodeck isn’t quite ready. My entire house is crammed in there while we continue to unpack after a recent move, though it turns out this is a good thing because reading up on people’s PC experiences has made it clear I should wait a week or two before I climb into the space survival 'em ups cockpit. The Beyond update which adds VR and more launched yesterday with a pile of bugs, and the patches have already started to roll out.
]]>At some point today, the vast and giffable world of No Man’s Sky will update - it's already out on PS4, and it could happen any second on PC. I’m extremely excited about it. I like space, I like VR, and I like bonkers worlds with ridiculous proc-gen. I even like ambient multiplayer, and No Man’s Sky Beyond has all of those, now. And Hello Games promise that, unlike the last update, your player-made bases should still be there when the universe returns.
]]>Hello, I'm high school sweetheart, John Walker. Welcome, if you can, to Steam Charts.
]]>Hello Games' next big update for No Man's Sky - coming August 14th - introduces virtual reality support and a new multiplayer social space called The Nexus, where players can convene with fellow space-farers to show off their gear and feasibly do other fun space-related activities. Finally, you will have a built-in audience for all that pent-up space-comedy material you've been saving ("What's the deal with space monoliths?" you will crack with Seinfeld-like emphasis to your audience of 14 year olds from Bournemouth) and a means for trading tips on how best to get that space-dinosaur fart smell out of your exosuit.
But the latest launch trailer for Beyond shows off something in passing that I'm frankly a lot more excited by: Rideable space crabs and space pigs. Video after the jump.
]]>"You want multiplayer?" Hello Games (probably) asked last summer, ahead of No Man's Sky's last big update, named Next. "Buddy, you've got it." At that point, I imagine a good chunk of the game's player base looked at the four-player offering, shrugged, and replied: "Sure, that's nice and all, but we were expecting... bigger."
Personally, I was happy pottering about on my lonesome for a couple dozen hundred hours. It turns out plenty of folks quite like having friends, though. Beyond, the big(ger) multiplayer update for No Man's Sky, looks like it'll make finding them easier than ever when it blasts off in two weeks.
"There's a few things I hope to accomplish here," said Cameron G, a Sydney-based graphic designer behind the fundraiser to buy an advert on the billboard outside the Guilford office of Hello Games. "I want Hello Games to feel appreciated for their dedication and achievement with No Man's Sky. I want to raise money to donate to the Sydney Children's Hospital. I want to show all the big developers out there what a good developer, a good game and healthy community look like."
]]>Our former John (RPS in peace) has vanished in odd circumstances, last heard claiming he'll be flying through the sky in a big metal snake, so I'm taking over this week. Not even an employee anymore and he's still making work for me.
Join me for a stroll down the hit parade to inspect last week's top-selling games on Steam.
]]>The official store page for the Valve Index is live now, featuring tech specs on the new VR headgear and controller combo, a June 28th launch date and a price-tag. If you've got no other VR equipment and this is your first set of space-goggles, it'll set you back a cool £919/€1079/$999. The full kit includes two tracking base-stations, the headset itself and a pair of their next-gen finger-tracking controllers, formerly known as Knuckles. There are cheaper options for people who already own HTC Vive or Vive Pro hardware, as the base stations and controllers are cross-compatible.
]]>As time inexorably ticks away, its guttural screaming horror counting down the seconds until our infinite deaths, it's important we remember what really matters: that the game you like best isn't as good as the game I like best. The game you like best, the game you like reading about the most, is indicative of how foolish you are, how you're wasting your precious moments on this planet. Whereas I, liking my game, am making the most of it.
]]>At least half of the joy of No Man's Sky is soaking in its strange alien landscapes that its algorithms have generated for you. I reckon that sightseeing should be all the more impressive in virtual reality. During a Sony live-stream, Hello Games unveiled one more feature of their upcoming free expansion, Beyond - full VR support. Players with existing saves can put on a pair of space-goggles and immediately go virtual, and even play with other people online whether or not they have expensive headsets, too. Take a look at the new VR mode with its new, tactile controls below.
]]>Sandbox spacetourism survival sim No Man's Sky will expand again with another honking great free update this summer, developers Hello Games announced today. No Man's Sky: Beyond, they call it. While details are still shrouded in the mists of marketing schedules, Hello do say they plan to expand the multiplayer with "a radical new social and multiplayer experience." The teaser trailer announcing all this shows the opposite, one single spaceman standing by one single spaceship, so what it actually involves is anyone's guess. It is a nice spaceship, mind.
]]>Hey, remember the good old days? Those giddy times I like to think of as last week? When the Charts felt fresh and new, filled with potential, as if any interesting game could take a top spot? Well, forget all that because it's all gone to shit again.
]]>If you're not already following Rob Fearon's @NoMansPics Twitter account, get on that now because it's about to get even prettier since No Man's Sky launched its 'Visions' update today. Visions introduces new anamalous biomes with stranger sights and stranger life, more potential shades of sky and grass, carnivorous flora, ambulant rocks, improved skies, and even rainbows. It whacks in more stuff to find and collect too but mate I'm all about that planetary variety.
]]>Update: Hello Games have announced the Vision update will land this Thursday, the 22nd. You can read the (exceedingly pretty) patch notes here.
Hang on, I'm getting a vision of something. I see... I see a more varied No Man's Sky, with properly alien aliens and five new planetary biomes. I see cool derelict spaceships, ancient buried skeletons and launchable fireworks. I see double rainbows, all the way across the sky.
I see the new trailer for Visions, an upcoming update that seems to have leaked from Hello Games.
]]>I'm always touched to receive e-mails imploring me to "Get in the [flipping] sea," sent by fans who know there's nowhere I'm happier than in that deep blue. I'm glad to hear that No Man's Sky players today get to enjoy more life aquatic, with the latest major free update focusing on improving oceans. 'The Abyss', as version 1.7 is nicknamed, overhauls and expands ocean biomes with more varied life, boshes in new building modules for sea bases, slips in a submarine, lets us keep aquariums with sealife we find, and new wrecks and stories under the sea. It really is better down where it's wetter, you know.
]]>Space explorers in Hello Games's No Man's Sky can now experience the pleasure of finding ancient alien religious sites, then ramping off them in a giant spacebike while hootin' and/or hollerin'. The Akira-meets-Popemobile beauty above is the Pilgrim, a new Exocraft added in today's vehicle-focused update. Players wanting to take it for a spin should check out their nearest Blueprint Analyser, and look for the Pilgrim Geobay, along with a new device allowing you to summon ground vehicles anywhere on a planet's surface. Check out the full patch 1.63 notes here.
]]>As well as finding No Man's Sky a relaxing exploration sim to play, I’ve especially enjoyed hearing about all the weird and wonderful corners of the universe that other players have stumbled upon. Now, Hello Games have made it much easier to find those stories. Released with the latest update, the Galactic Atlas allows anyone to explore fan-submitted points of interest. And I can’t stop poking around in it.
]]>Most studios would be content with a re-launch of their game making it a massively played best-seller, but Hello Games have more planned for their procedural space sandbox, No Man's Sky. The studio have their first season of community events planned out, and the first, detailed in this official blog post, goes live today.
Buckle your swashes and put an eyepatch on your space-helmet, as there's a hunt on for buried treasure in a remote corner of the galaxy. It's not a massive undertaking, but should help bring its community together in search of underground loot and some extra cosmetic items, with more goodies coming in the following weeks.
]]>OK! OK! Look, thank you, yes, yes, I know, thank you. Yes, it's very exciting that I'm here with this week's Steam Charts, but come on, please, sit down now, that's really enough. Oh, come on, all of you, you're lovely, but it's only little me. Goodness gracious!
]]>Welcome to the Award Winning Steam Charts! Yes, you heard that right! I wrote "Award Winning"! It hasn't technically won any awards, but since everyone can agree it should have, it seems like it would almost be lying not to write it. But enough about how bloody brilliant I am, here are the top grossing games on your Steams this week.
]]>Space exploration sim No Man’s Sky recently added both multiplayer and third-person perspective, along with a host of other changes for its Next update. To me, the mere presence of character models seemed innocuous at first, but it’s quickly become one of my favourite things about the game.
The character customisation, which can be accessed on any space station, isn’t particularly detailed, but it doesn’t need to be. The main thing is that you now have a tangible presence in the universe, and just enough control over what that presence looks like.
]]>Then the bus EXPLODED. Hello, this is the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, and we are here to talk about the best game openings and intros. Whether they are cold opens or slow burns, we love a good first impression.
]]>Words are ill-equipped to describe how dull this week's Steam Charts truly are. Read on to see how I combat that. But also, thank goodness there's at least the interesting feature that Plunkbat has, for the first time since it shot to the top of the charts on its release, dropped to third place. Its year-long grip on the top spot was beginning to waver in recent weeks, increasingly finding itself at #2 in the face of a big new release. Now its weakening dominance has seen it slip another spot down. Could Plunkles be seeing its rule coming to an end?
]]>A pilot in planet-hopping space sim No Man’s Sky is offering a big reward to the first person who finds a specific ship and sends them the co-ordinates. The reward is 200 million units for a ship that looks like this, according to a bounty posted on Reddit by player "Avaslash". There’s also a “possible bonus” of 20 million spacequid if it has the exact bits and bobs laid out in the bounty, and a further 50 million bonus for anyone who finds the ship within 2 weeks. The ship-seeker is willing to pay so much because the recent update to the rock-lasering sci-fi game messed up their favourite spacecraft. And they want it back.
]]>Each of my annual returns to No Man's Sky finds a very different approach to a very similar game. Last year proved rather delightful. This year's major patch, called Next, has me wanting to ship out before I've even left the first planet.
]]>Update: GOG are now offering refunds to anyone who owns NMS there, even if they're beyond the 30-day guarantee. GOG take great, finger-pointing pains to say that "Hello Games chose not to offer refunds over missing game content to our users" and this is "entirely at GOG's own cost". I have found it's often best to brew a cuppa, have a ciggy, or stroll round the block before making snippy proclamations.
Space pootler No Man's Sky added online multiplayer in its long-awaited Next update yesterday, but what I'd missed--and don't remember hearing about in advance?--is that this is only for the Steam version of No Man's Sky. Citizens of the stars who bought the game DRM-free on GOG have received much of the Next update, with all its prettying-up and frigate fleets and new missions and whatnot, but not multiplayer. Online play is not in the GOG version yet, and isn't expected until "later this year."
]]>Today, No Man's Sky is one small step closer to being the improbable dream-game so many envisioned it as, in one giant leap for patch-kind. The 'Next' update adds full online multiplayer, third-person camera modes and a chunk of new things to do, see and explore. The graphics have received a bit of love from Hello Games as well, going as far as adding scads of pointless but cool-looking greebles all over spacecraft and structures. There's a whole lot more, but you're probably better off skimming the enormous patch-notes page here.
]]>Proper fancy 'pootle around space with your spacepals' online multiplayer will arrive in No Man's Sky with the 'Next' update on Tuesday, we've known for a while, and I'm surprised to hear developers Hello Games already talking about what's next after Next. They have planned a season of "weekly content and community events" to start "a little while after" Next's launch, they say. They don't say more about what those plans are but coo, go on, more spacestuff, I'll take that.
]]>Quite large space jaunt No Man’s Sky is getting an update next week that adds a "full multiplayer experience" to the game, allowing players to help and hurt one another across the procedural planets. No Man’s Sky Next is the biggest update to the game since its release two years ago, say developers Hello Games. We’ve already been told it was incoming but now we have a more solid idea of what you and your spacemates will be able to do, including better base building and frigate commanding. As you can see in the trailer below, it also lets you play in third-person, both in-ship and on foot.
]]>Some folk sure held a grudge over No Man’s Sky, huh?
It’s two years later, and you’d still be hard-pressed to find anything on that game not followed by a few souls still screaming at the void about “lying developers”. Not that I expect the conversation to change - first impressions leave stubborn stains - but, next month, No Man’s Sky will finally let you fly with friends. Multiplayer is finally coming.
]]>Colourful space explore-o-survival sandbox No Man's Sky will add multiplayer with the free 'Next' update in July, developers Hello Games announced today. Spacemen will get to explore together, wander together, pootle together, fly together, race together, battle together, build bases together, bump into each other around space, and even murder each other if they're feeling monstrous. Ah, time to dust off the ol' spaceship and round up some pals for an intergalactic nature hike.
]]>Update Night is a fortnightly column in which Rich McCormick revisits games to find out whether they've been changed for better or worse.
I died fifty times before I felt the hand of god.
Trapped on an unbearably hot world in No Man’s Sky’s survival mode, I died to the teeth of a stubby legged Tyrannosaur. I died to a roving band of sentinel robots, upset that I dared to plunder their planet for ore and isotopes. I died during blazing storms, the already extreme temperature ratcheting up to 300 degrees celsius, and cooking me alive in my space suit. Most often, I simply died from exposure as my suit’s life support drained away and left me without any oxygen to breathe.
]]>Another day, another No Man's Sky [official site] update. Hello Games have had their noses to the space-grindstone ever since launch, with the recent Atlas Rises (1.30) update bringing enormous changes to the procedurally generated space-sim sandbox. This Tuesday, they rolled out another update, and a slew of minor changes. Patch, 1.38, (full notes here) gives top billing to save system improvements, expanding the number of usable slots to five, each of which can have a separate difficulty setting assigned.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.
No Man's Sky has changed a great deal since the initial release, switching from a pure, lonely exploration experience to a game with base building, harder survival-based modes, rudimentary multiplayer and a lot more. I still prefer that original lonely exploration, though.
]]>No Man's Sky [official site] patch 1.37 has added a new (but toggle-able so therefore optional) ship control scheme for mouse and keyboard.
Hello Games say: "This option can be toggled, and changes ship controls to be cursor based, meaning you'll be able to direct your ship easily using your mouse". Pip says: "I just booted up the game and hopped in my ship, immediately becoming distracted by the new interface which is less ace piloting and more kind of like pulling a ball through the air using an elastic band?"
It might take some getting used to is what I'm saying.
]]>Hello Games are in a deeply unenviable position. In the wake of No Man's Sky's [official site] release with its waterfall of unkept promises, to me it seems the studio is trapped in the Sisyphean task of trying to tweak, patch, update and amend their game until it can meet the impossible imagined version created by the combined efforts of its developers and its players. Rather than compare this hugely embellished version of the game that greets players now with that of just over a year ago, the temptation is to compare it to the dream version we will never get.
But it's crucial to push that aside, and accept that no, No Man's Sky was never going to be this game of true universal exploration, of truly unique realistic planets with truly unique creatures existing in an intricate ecosystem, where we might stumble upon another player and interact, where we might see flocking dinosaurs hunted by predatory beasts as trees fall down in their wake... Instead, let's look at what we do have now, because it's actually rather a lot.
]]>You want to know which are the top ten selling games on Steam this week, but you also still don't know the capital city of Turkmenistan. What is a person to do? Well worry not, because here at Steam Charts HQ, we've got you covered! All the games that are in the top ten games in the Steam top ten games chart, and all the facts you need for that surprise government test!
Join us today as we laugh and learn.
]]>Toss another podcast episode upon the fire, stranger. The cold is closing in but the Electronic Wireless Show will keep us warm. Pip, Alice and Adam gather round the podfire this week to talk about the lies (Adam tells) at Gamescom, the icy reception to The Long Dark's story mode, the cleansing rain of Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, and the deadly climates of No Man's Sky.
We then turn to you, listeners, to discuss your favourite in-game weather. And somewhere in the middle there's also a long discussion about karaoke, for some reason.
]]>The Steam Charts is the only place on the internet to find out the most up-to-date information about the games you care about the most, the latest rumours of upcoming changes to early access hits, and secrets that can see your way to coming top of the gaming high score tables!
]]>UPDATE: Atlas Rises is out now and is 4GB - so says the download my Steam account is currently doing!
Did you know that I still play No Man's Sky [official site]? I started a new save recently with the intention of building a base and following the storyline and possibly having a greenhouse and then ended up ignoring all of the above and instead pootling from planet to planet, chasing a sort of multi-headed cactus creature. Business as usual for Pip.
BUT I've been keeping an eye on the imminent update, mostly just to see what it brings and how my ongoing voyage might change. It sounds like Atlas Rises (which is what update 1.3 is called), in addition to ancient portals, terrain editing, 30 hours of new story content and so on, is also making baby steps towards synchronous co-op (i.e. a very basic form of multiplayer).
]]>The Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don’t worry. We’ve rounded up some recommendations - both general tips and some newly added staff choices.
Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You're welcome.
]]>The latest chunky update for No Man's Sky [official site] added a lot of things that are probably Of Interest to other people and a brand new, totally overhauled and significantly fleshed-out photo mode which is of interest to me. The mode was created in collaboration with Duncan Harris, whose awesome screenshot art you might know from Dead End Thrills and thus is far more than just a free camera and a HUD removal option (although it does both of those things).
I've spent an obscene number of hours since the update landed (an entire season of Spooks on Netflix) skipping from planet to planet in search of pleasing landscapes so I figured I'd share the preliminary results in a gallery!
To navigate the gallery just use the arrow buttons near the images or the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard. Click on the images themselves to see larger versions.
I don't have a fancy rig or anything so this is more about what's possible and why the mode is interesting rather than some 4k-stravaganza...
]]>After trapping a galaxy inside a computer using maths, No Man's Sky developers Hello Games are launching an initiative to fund and support other devs' wild dreams of procedural worlds. With first-hand experience of risking running out of money while working on something they loved, they'd like to help other folks working with procedural generation and experimental games research. 'Hello Labs', as they call it, has already befriended one project and more may follow. For now, it's all a bit mysterious.
]]>Oh blimey. Hello Games is releasing the Path Finder update for No Man's Sky [official site] today. Alice? ALICE? ALIIIIIIIICE? Alice, there doesn't seem to be a bicycle but there are a selection of planetary rover-type things called exocraft. No bells as far as I can tell, though. There's also the potential to visit other people's bases if popping over for a space visit is your bag, to own multiple ships if ships are your bag and permadeath if dying forever is your bag. You can do race track building and sharing and... *skims the rest of the list* A NEW PHOTO MODE created in collaboration with him off DeadEndThrills? Step aside, news article, I'm going in.
First the summary list of Path Finder jiggerypokery:
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