Oh good lord, here they go again. No Man’s Sky has just revealed its 5.0 update for the game, once again free, once again changing an insane amount of stuff in what might be its biggest update ever. This is “Worlds Part 1” indicating more parts to follow, but by itself it’s a complete overhaul of the game in many ways, especially visually.
What’s in this massive update, which is probably worth returning for? Let’s go through it, though you can see the full breakdown from Hello Games here.
- There’s a new galactic bug hunt as a community expedition, asking you to join the Liquidator Vanguard to purge it. Comes with new trophies and organic armor parts. There is a new Liquidator heavy mech suit that can get a flamethrower and you can get an insect jetpack.
- Walker battles now have detailed combat UI and the ability to see and target vulnerabilities.
- You can now rename any discovered system, planet, flora, fauna and minerals to whatever you want.
- Planets have been transformed with wild new variants that include floating islands in the sky which yes, will allow you to build bases there or watch waterfalls pour from the rocks to the ground.
- New volumetric clouds look better than ever with new wispy cirrus clouds and dark nimbus clouds. There is also a new range of sky colors including very rare hues like yellow to find, and there are different night skies as well. There are more detailed atmospheric effects for snowfall, ash, rain, dust and storm crystals.
- You can customize solar class ships with unique components for all pieces.
- Shadows have been improved across the game and now correspond to sun position.
- Water has been improved with ripples, sparkles, waves and foam. Also reflections and lit surface details. There are also new water colors including rare ones on rare planets.
- Wind has been improved where leaves and grass rustle and trees and rocks sway in storms. There are also dust clouds, rain, snow and smoke that react to the wind system. Water also reacts to winds and storms. Storms have been dramatically increased in intensity and visuals.
- New creatures are all over the universe including combination flora/fauna plant things.
- There are new sub zero worlds with ice trees and glacial rocks with new flora and minerals for more diversity on ice planets.
- Desert plants also have more diversity now with…uh, palms.
- The engine of the game has been enhanced to improve visuals and performance with better rendering of everything on planets and more detail.
- There are now new beetles wandering around. There are giant insect queens to fight.
- There are 40 new nutrient processor recipes from insects.
- Some planetary buildings now have…legs and can roam across the landscape.
- Starships can now land on water letting you dive directly into the sea. You can also summon your ships to land on water near you for a “rescue.”
- There are new skylight parts for the roofs of bases.
- You can build underwater bases.
- There are new toxic climate noxious worlds where the ground bubbles and oozes.
- There are irradiated planets with more colorful and diverse landscapes with “twisted forests.”
- Burnt worlds have new diverse fire flora, superheated crystals and ash-based atmospheres.
- Lush worlds, garden planets have exotic alien flowers and are beautiful places for bases.
- Hungering Tendrils have been beefed up, spitting projectiles and the fights have an added combat UI.
Good lord, I thought that list would never end. Certainly seems like a great time to dive back in and see what all this looks like in practice. I always start an “easy mode” playthrough to see what’s new in big updates like this, and I probably will again after all this.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.