28 Changes Coming to No Man's Sky with NEXT

28 Changes Coming to No Man's Sky with NEXT

Share. There are a lot of small steps behind this giant leap. There are a lot of small steps behind this giant leap.

No Man’s Sky is getting its first major update in a year, and it adds a lot to the cosmic exploration experience. Hello Games has already revealed the headline additions coming in the NEXT update, with a very clear focus on responding to players desires. Multiplayer, upgraded base-building, character customisation - it's essentially a wishlist drawn from comments sections internet-wide.

But after getting our hands on the upcoming version of the game and talking to creator Sean Murray, we spotted lots of little details - both part of those headline changes and beyond - that had been added, all of which add up to make NEXT an even bigger step for the game than we first thought. Here’s everything we noticed:

Alone, Together

Full multiplayer is finally coming to No Man’s Sky, and the first thing you’ll notice is that the once-lonely galaxy is a lot sillier when playing with friends. Who would have thought walling someone into a cave with a terrain manipulator and laughing at their misfortune was the tweak this game needed?

Parties can be up to four players large, with everyone bringing their items and ships along for the ride.

There’s no range limit on your party. While you’ll appear in the same place as the player you join, you can then blast off into space and head halfway across the galaxy, while remaining in the same game.

While a party’s set up by joining a single player’s game, they aren’t a host. Everyone has equal privileges, and can get the party to take part in their missions, wherever they are in the story.

The one restriction is that all players have to be using a save file in the same game mode, Normal, Creative or Survival...

… But if you don’t have a compatible save, we’re told you can join another player as a guest, presumably with standardised equipment.

The focus is very much on playing together, but you can attack your fellow players. It might be more trouble than it’s worth - when I blew up someone’s ship, they respawned halfway across the planet, which was a bit of a faff for everyone.

Starships are strictly assigned to the player that owns them, and they’re still all one-seaters, so you can’t pick up passengers.

But you can share almost everything else - transferring items across inventories now gives you the option to send any item to any player in your party.

A player can also activate Photo Mode while the rest of the party carries on playing, meaning you can stage some lovely shots.

If one player owns a Capital Ship they can accept new multiplayer missions.

From what we’ve seen, the new missions err on the side of simple, tasking the party with everything from combat challenges to scanning set numbers of creatures.

Exit Theatre Mode

Building Bases, Going Places

Bases can now be built anywhere - and I mean anywhere. Underwater, up mountains, on floating rocks. It’s worth scouting for the most impressive location.

Bases can now be built out of up to 20,000 individual pieces, meaning you can build giant, sprawling complexes - we saw one with buildings at the top and bottom of a ravine, with a staircase that took minutes to climb between them.

Base building also comes with a mission tree now, keeping you building by rewarding you with new pieces for old ones.

Whoever sets the initial base piece owns the whole building but in multiplayer, any party member can add to a base owned by another party member.

You can also base-build within a Capital Ship owned by a party member.

Incidentally, landing a whole party’s starships in a freighter will seemingly be the easiest way of getting to new systems together.

If you’re rich in units, you can buy a whole fleet of freighters, and a new mission list lets you send them out on various missions, which play out in real time.

Those freighters don’t just disappear - they head to the specific system where the mission takes place. If you really wanted to annoy a party member, you could trick them into landing on a frigate, then send it on a mission in a distant system, blasting them into space with your laughter ringing in their ears. Just a thought.

Exit Theatre Mode

Get the Look

The game’s added a third-person viewpoint, and it wants you to know that - in our game, it became the default on-foot view.

It’s easy to change, however - the contextual menu you use to recharge systems or recall your ship now also lets you switch from third to first person at any time.

With the third-person mode and multiplayer comes another addition - you actually have a customisable player model now.

You can change your look at any time from a new terminal. That terminal can be found in every space station, and can be built in your bases and freighters.

You can change your helmet, suit, even your species. Changing to a short species like the Gek will lower your first-person view appropriately.

Speaking of your view, the HUD’s been tweaked a little, with a sleeker contextual menu and less intrusive pop-ups when you pick up items and materials.

Perhaps the nicest little change is the ability to repair critically damaged systems piece by piece. Instead of having to stockpile all the materials needed, you can plug in what you have and leave to find more, freeing up inventory space.

A new scanning view also helps show off a new addition - worlds can now be peppered with buried treasure, which you can uncover with the terrain manipulator and crack open for various rewards.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor, and he apologises to his colleague Dale for the persistent low-level griefing. Follow him on Twitter.