
News + Trends
No Man's Sky: Finally rated "very positive" after eight years
by Debora Pape
Your connection with your spaceship in "No Man's Sky" is now even closer with the new "Voyager" update. You can design and set it up yourself from scratch.
At the beginning of August, the development team at Hello Games celebrated the ninth birthday of its sandbox space game «No Man's Sky». Now the studio is - once again - releasing an extensive and, as usual, free content update. It's called «Voyagers» and brings the game up to version 6.0.
If you like spaceships, you might love the update: According to the blog post, you can now design your own ship from «hundreds of» individual modules and build it to your liking. Studio boss Sean Murray presents the update here:
«No Man's Sky» previously had a ship upgrade system. This allowed you to upgrade the engines or shields of your ships with the appropriate items, for example. Otherwise, however, the spaceships were predefined. In addition, you could not leave the pilot's seat during the flight and walk around the ship. All of this has now changed completely: Your spaceship becomes your flying space base.
With this new so-called Corvette class, you can build both a small exploration ship and a huge, fearsome warship. This also includes a functioning interior, which can include sleeping quarters, med bays, a war room, radar systems and a teleporter to suit your taste. Even vegetable patches and a kitchenette are possible. There are various decoration modules for both the interior and the outer shell.
Windows provide a view of the infinite expanses of space - even during the flight: with the update, you can leave the pilot's seat at any time. Or you can open the airlock and take a space walk - this is now also possible for the first time. You can also invite other players into your ship if you wish.
You can choose from different styles for the interior design. The style «Thunderbird» is reminiscent of the Millenium Falcon from «Star Wars» with its exposed pipes and armour tape charm. You can get a military look with panels and lots of buttons with the «Titan» interior. The «Ambassador» class, on the other hand, stands for a clean, bright sci-fi look with bright stripes and rounded corners.
To build your Corvette, you first have to unlock it. This should be possible quite early on in the game via a special expedition. You will receive the necessary components for your ship. There is (also?) a time-limited Community Expedition, which gives you exclusive rewards - such as a new mechanical companion - and is also embedded in a story background.
After that, you can build your Corvette.
After that, you can start building. You'll find the Corvette workshop in the usual space stations. Fortunately, you don't build your ship from the first or third-person view of your character, but instead use a freely rotating camera in the workshop. This allows the individual modules to be placed precisely.
In any case, the update is so interesting for me that I can hardly wait to download the game again and visit the shipyard.
The memories of the first few months after the release must have been quite painful for the development team during the birthday review. The launch of «No Man's Sky» was one of the most disastrous the gaming world has ever seen. The finished game was a far cry from what trailers and grandiose announcements had promised in advance. Huge hype in the run-up to the launch was followed by an abrupt crash. There was a huge shitstorm and accusations of fraud, which were not entirely unjustified.
However, the team pulled itself together after the initial shock, retreated to the developer's den - and delivered. All the promises that Hello Games made before the release and were unable to fulfil were fulfilled in the months and years that followed.
And it didn't stop there: for nine years, Hello Games has regularly delivered «No Man's Sky» new content - free of charge. There is no plan, no season pass and no paid DLCs. As a result, the studio has developed from one of the most hated to one of the most popular game studios around.
Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.