Hello Games made good on their promise to release the No Man’s Sky Foundation Update within the week. Over the weekend, the patch went life for PC and Playstation 4 with a list of contents that was much bigger than initially expected.
For those catching up, the game’s announcement last Friday was the first time the developing team at Hello Games had spoken about No Man’s Sky for months. A controversy surrounding its release had left many players scorned, and the silence certainly didn’t help. After the bug fixes released on September 24th, No Man’s Sky fell stagnant. That is, until the Foundation Update.
Hello Games promised that the Foundation Updated wouldn’t be the “biggest update, but it is the start of something.” But for not being ‘big’, the patch has certainly delivered more than what we expected. Here are just the highlights:
GAME MODES
- Explorers can now decide to play with different rule sets, across three game modes:
- Normal mode is the original chilled exploration experience
- Creative mode allows players to explore the universe without limits, and build a huge base
- Survival mode really changes the game, creating a much more challenging endurance experience
- Death quotes: prepare to see these a lot in survival mode.
BASE BUILDING
- Claim your home planet by finding an uninhabited base and creating your own, fully bespoke outpost.
- Construct your homestead for shelter, using modular structures and decorations, replicated from resources gathered while exploring
- Recruit alien lifeforms to help research new technology. Farming, engineer, weapons and science specialists are hirable from Space Stations
- Use Terminus Teleporters in Space Stations to teleport to and from your base at will Expand your base with storage containers to stockpile precious resources and rare products
- Find an even more beautiful location and you can simply dismantle your previous homestead to refund all of the spent resources
FARMING
- Cultivate biome dependent crops outdoors, or inside your base or Freighter using Hydroponic Labs
- Plants grow over time and offer a steady supply of resources to be harvested
- Hire a farming specialist to research and grow ten new plant types, and discover new resource elements
MAKING CAMP
- Players can now build essential equipment in the field on-planet
- Place save points anywhere in the world, crucial for Survival mode
- Automated Harvesters gather resources from mineral deposits in your absence
- Waypoints can be placed and colour-coded to allow explorers to return to discoveries
- Communications Terminals allow explorers to leave sub-space messages for others to find
- Discover nearby mineral deposits, uninhabited bases or suit upgrades with the use of a Signal Scanner
FREIGHTERS
- Purchase huge interstellar Freighters at great expense, and then summon them from anywhere in the galaxy
- Resources can be teleported to your Freighter while on-planet, ideal for stockpiling goods for trading
- Customize the inside of your Freighter within the Base Building section
- Create extended cargo holds to expand your vessel’s capacity, and grow crops of rare resources on board
- Transport your Freighter and its cargo to different, more economically favorable systems to maximize your earnings
- Use the new recruitment system to crew your Freighter with Engineer, Farmer, Weapons, and Science specialists to help research new technologies
NEW RESOURCES & TECHNOLOGY
- Discover new biome and star specific resource types as you explore the universe
- Craft the new Advanced Mining Laser and Hazmat gauntlets through base building and use them to gather rare resources
- Research and discover dozens of new products, building components and technologies
The user interface was also improved with a Quick Access Menu, added stacking per inventory slot, and better indicator signs over all. Furthermore, new Temporal AntiAliasing and Movement Blur have been added to the game for a smoother gameplay experience. And that’s just what’s laid out in front of the player. Under the hood, the game underwent a major overhaul in regards to terrain and creature generation including the addition of barren planets without fauna and life. A comprehensive list of the full patch notes has been compiled by Reddit user tizorres.
Still, the amount of content can be staggering. Thankfully, Hello Games also provided an updated rundown of the game’s newest features.
The game’s developing team has undergone a lot of criticism for their silence before the update. Even Sean Murray, a creator of No Man’s Sky, offered his sentiments on exactly how much the update meant to him and the team.
“If you could have lived our lives over the last months, you’d know how meaningful this is,” he stated on Twitter with a link to the Update 1.1 blog post.
Afterward, he noted that the team hadn’t been comfortable sharing information about the update until they were one hundred percent confident in its release.
Hello Games promises many more updates to come in the future for No Man’s Sky. One player named eggandj on Reddit dove deep into the game’s files and revealed what might be content to come: a buggy. Supporting evidence shows that the land vehicle already has tire tracks textures and a 3D model that has now been uploaded as a ‘land vehicle test’ mod for public consumption.
Unfortunately, the players can’t ride the buggy just yet and will have to make due with the current sprint/jetpack land transportation.
While some remain skeptical, others have agreed that the Foundation Update is a step in the right direction for No Man’s Sky. One thing is sure; this patch has indeed shot for the moon to repair Hello Game’s reputation. But did it succeed? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
