Notably, the upgrade also makes it easier to discover other players. You can scan other star systems players have discovered on the galactic map, increasing the chances that you'll run into someone. Many have argued that NMS is really a single-player game given the sheer unlikelihood of two people finding the same celestial bodies (there are 18.4 quintillion unique planets), but those odds just went up.

This is merely the "first of many" free updates to the space exploration title, Hello Games adds. The next upgrade will let you build bases, own "giant space freighters" and marvel at graphical upgrades like new cloud rendering and temporal anti-aliasing. In other words, the developers see the title as a constantly evolving project. You might get a very different experience if you hop in a few months later, let alone over the long term.