Massive Overhaul Coming to No Man's Sky

• No Man's Sky gets a major update with "Worlds Part 1."
• New water and cloud technology for dynamic weather.
• Ships can now land on water.
• New expedition to fight alien bugs.
• Heavy armor mech with a flamethrower introduced.

No Man's Sky is getting a complete universal refresh in one of its biggest updates ever.

The sci-fi sim is overhauling planets and going full Helldivers in its latest expedition.

By Ethan Gach

Published Wednesday 9:35 AM

As No Man's Sky nears its eighth anniversary, it's clear the open-world survival crafting sim isn't slowing down.

A cavalcade of free updates continues to transform the game from what it once was at launch, and the latest of those is no different.

Today, Hello Games revealed "Worlds Part 1," a complete overhaul of planetary weather that's dropping alongside a major balancing patch and a new expedition that will see the community collectively fight against the threat of alien bugs.

Anyone else ready for some No Man's Helldivers?

Suggested Reading

Jeanne D'Arc Is Great, Flock Is Supremely Chill, And More Video Game Takes For The Week

No Man's Sky's Huge Overhaul

The Software Update That Stopped The World And More Of The Week's Top Stories

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess - The Streamers Visuals Review

Streamers Visuals' Hopes For Spyro The Dragon's Reported Comeback

Order No Man's Sky

Amazon

Best Buy

Humble Bundle

When we started No Man's Sky, we wanted people to feel like they had stepped into a science fiction book cover, director Sean Murray wrote in an email announcing "Worlds Part 1."

To bring us closer to that, we've had to create a lot of new technology.

He said that technology will now make possible things in the game that the community has almost given up hope on ever happening.

Major Changes

• New water technology for waves and reflections
• Waves are dynamic and will react to wind
• Ships can land on water
• New cloud tech for detailed skies with changing weather conditions
• Volumetrics and atmospherics on planet surfaces for rolling fog, rain, blizzards, lava sparks, and other phenomena
• Weather systems that interact and develop in real-time as players explore
• New biomes and more creatures to discover, all of which can become pets and mounts

Alongside this overhaul, No Man's Sky will also be launching a new expedition that revolves around fighting alien bugs.

Murray describes it as Starship Troopers-inspired and says players will fight against these bugs across the new planets they explore.

This will be community-driven and come with a new heavy armor mech that has a flamethrower for an arm.

It sounds like the unofficial Helldivers 2 crossover no one expected and also a great idea for a new mech stratagem in Arrowhead's hit shooter.

Murray had been teasing this update for several days, with fans speculating about all the different things that could still be added to No Man's Sky this many years later.

Some hoped for custom space stations, others guessed a complete universal reset, and a few wondered if Hello Games might finally be ready to share more information about its other upcoming project, the fantasy survival RPG "Light No Fire."

We didn't end up getting a new trailer for that game, but it did come up in today's update.

Six months ago, we announced "Light No Fire," Murray wrote.

It's this insanely ambitious game.

Over the last five years making the game, we've learned new things and we're feeding that back into No Man's Sky.

It feels like we're bringing technology back from the future.

That's effectively another way of saying that the new planetary features players can now experience in No Man's Sky also act as a teaser and potentially an early preview of what they can expect from the look and feel of "Light No Fire."

The game doesn't have a release date, but here's hoping we hear more about it at one of the gaming showcases coming later this year.

Full List of Changes in the 50 Patch Notes

Sky and Cloud Rendering

• The atmospheric and volumetric cloud rendering system has been completely rewritten for vastly increased detail and definition
• Planets now exhibit a greater range of cloud coverage over time, from planet-to-planet and in response to weather conditions
• Planets with rain will no longer use the ambient rain effect when cloud coverage is insufficient
• Daytime sky colors are now significantly more varied
• Nighttime ambient lighting is no longer always blue and can vary according to the planet's natural environment
• Nighttime darkness levels now vary as the night progresses
• Nighttime darkness now varies from planet-to-planet with some being significantly darker than others

Water Rendering

• Water rendering has been completely overhauled and now uses a mesh-based system that allows for true wave and foam generation
• Water conditions vary over time in response to both local weather and the depth of the water at any particular location, producing effects from stormy seas and huge ocean swells to tranquil still ponds
• Water now reflects the sun and features ambient planetary reflections for dramatically increased visual quality
• Water color variety has been significantly increased
• Base parts with glass now accurately render the water conditions outside
• Sealed underwater base parts will no longer leak water into the base
• Ships now leave splashes and trails in the water when flying low
• Underwater jetpack effects have been significantly improved
• Swimming effects have been significantly improved
• Starships can now be fitted with aquatic landing jets, allowing them to land or be summoned just above the surface of the ocean
• A biological equivalent of this technology has been added for living ships

General Engine Improvements

• The shadow-rendering system has been reworked to take advantage of screen-space shadowing techniques, resulting in more richly lit planets and more accurate and more detailed shadows
• The rendering of planetary objects such as trees, rocks, and grass has been rewritten and moved to a more modern GPU-based system, allowing for more objects at better performance
• Distant planetary objects now look significantly more detailed and realistic
• Terrain generation has been rewritten to incorporate dual marching cubes voxel meshing, which reduces vertex count, increases terrain generation speed, improves framerate, and saves significant amounts of memory
• The component system has been reworked for increased speed and improved memory usage
• Networking systems have been improved for reduced bandwidth usage
• Significant memory and performance optimizations have been made across the entire game, particularly in metadata usage, texture streaming, LOD generation, and procedural mesh generation

DLSS3

• Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) is an NVIDIA technology available to PC players with compatible RTX cards, which uses a deep learning neural network to boost frame rates and generate beautiful sharp images
• Support for the latest iteration, DLSS3, has been added to No Man's Sky
• DLSS3 multiplies performance by up to 4X compared to traditional rendering while retaining great image quality

Planetary Variety

• Planetary variety and diversity have been increased all across the universe
• New frozen, lush, desert, scorched, radioactive, and toxic worlds await discovery and exploration
• Underlying terrain shapes have not been reset and existing planetary bases will not be moved
• The chance of a world having ancient bones or salvageable scrap has been increased
• Worlds with salvageable scrap occasionally feature additional rusted remnants to collect

Environmental Effects

• The wind simulation has been reworked to bring planets to life and provide a consistent effect across each world, moving trees and leaves, smoke effects, rain, fog, and snow all in a unified system
• Fogging and particle systems have been improved for increased fidelity and better performance
• All ambient planetary environment effects have been totally reworked
• Storm effects have been completely overhauled
• Planets can now have a range of additional atmospheric effects that match their ambient weather and hazard conditions
• The visual effects for the jetpack have been overhauled
• The visual effects for storm crystals have been reworked and improved
• Footstep effect coloring has been improved
• Fixed an issue that caused starship contrails to display at low speed

Creatures

• A new type of procedurally-generated arthropod-style creature has been added and may appear on any world
• New types of procedurally-generated plant-animal hybrids have been added and may appear on any world
• New types of procedurally-generated synthetic constructs can now be found on selected worlds
• A new type of hostile creature has been added: the Brood Mother
• Some worlds have become infested with the Vile Brood. On such worlds, players can now find juicy grubs. Structurally harming these grubs will summon the Brood Mother to project their young
• A new multiplayer mission has been added to the Nexus to find and destroy the vile brood
• Players who defeat brood mothers in combat may earn a variety of new titles and insectoid-themed helmet customization options
• Over 40 new cooking recipes have been added, making use of products harvested from new creatures
• Biological horrors now drop cookable meat when killed
• When under AI pilot control, the Minotaur will now target and exterminate biological horrors
• The camera shake generated by the footsteps of colossal creatures has been reduced
• The boss battle style UI used when fighting capital ships is now also used when fighting Sentinel Walkers and the Vessel of Many Mouths, giving extra details about their health and status
• The Vessel of Many Mouths has been given additional ranged attacks, increasing the challenge of their encounter
• Fixed an issue that prevented the acquisition of worm-cult story documents from the titan worm's vile spawn

Liquidators Expedition

• Expedition Fourteen, Liquidators, will begin shortly and run for approximately six weeks
• This expedition invites players to join the force of the Liquidator Vanguard as they seek to purge the universe of biological horrors, old and new, including the infestations of the vile brood
• Rewards include new posters, custom bug-hunting trophies, a unique arthropod-themed jetpack, and a full set of matching armor
• All those who do their part and contribute to the community-wide efforts to exterminate the vile brood will earn pieces of the new Liquidator Heavy Exomech Hybrid, a set of heavy-duty armor for the Minotaur
• Among the enhancements available to the Liquidator Mech is a bespoke flamethrower unit, perfect for heavy damage at close range
• As the community makes progress in the expedition, the Liquidator Mech will become available at the Quicksilver Synthesis Companion for those unable to take part

Twitch Campaign

• A new package of Twitch drops will begin shortly. Sign up and link your platform accounts on the Twitch Drops page, then tune in to Twitch to earn exotic base parts, high-tech starships, fireworks, appearance modifications, and more

Solar Ship Customization

• The space station's Starship Fabricator has been expanded to include the ability to craft Solar-class starships

Base Parts

• A set of slanted skylight-style roof parts have been added for the timber, alloy, and stone construction sets
• Fixed an issue that could cause base parts to pop in just after loading or warping

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused the Blaze Javelin to always aim at the floor when shooting at Sentinel Quads
• Fixed an issue that caused the Quicksilver Synthesis Companion to chatter constantly whilst being interacted with
• Fixed a rare issue that could cause player ships to