Believe it or not it’s been a year since the train wreck that is No Man’s Sky was released. The game was full of hype and promises that fell more than flat when the title finally hit the hands of consumers.
However, on this one year anniversary a free update is being released to all players that actually has me debating about picking the title up. I was originally very excited about No Man’s Sky. I bought into the hype, it seemed very much like my kind of game. Sadly when it finally came out it seemed to be almost the Seinfeld of video games. A game about almost nothing.
There seemed to be no purpose to the game at all except to craft things, and to surf menus. The implied promises of shipwrecks, incredible creatures, multiplayer, and so much more were completely missing from the game when it launched. Those things are apparently included in this update.
The update promises “a brand new and overhauled central storyline, portals, a new procedural mission system, trade improvements, system economies, joint exploration and more.” Some of that more includes crashed freighters like the shipwrecks that we should have had from the beginning, a new portal system for getting around easier and allowing you to revisit planets, and improvements to space combat so we’ll have to see if we will actually get to have some of the epic battles that we were shows before the game was ever originally released.
The really big improvement is the addition of multiplayer. However it is as multi as it should be. They say that up to 16 players will be able to see and communicate with one another so that they will be able to explore the universe together. This will be accompanied by voice chat. No word however on how players on chosen to see one another and put into the groups (plus 16 is a big number when they originally gave such low chances of ever running into someone else).
I have been intrigued by this game since its original announcement. The Atlas Rises update may actually get me to play it.