One year later, No Man's Sky is a better game but still lacks magic and mystery, so said our Chris earlier this week after returning to the open world space exploration sim. Just over 12 months since launch, the game awaits its imminent Atlas Rises update—and Hello Games has now announced what we can expect.

30 hours of "new story content", which includes the appearance of a new "mysterious interdimensional alien race" tops the list, alongside "limited" online co-op. The latter (or lack thereof) created a stir at launch, so it'll be interesting to see what's on offer here. Under the heading 'Joint Exploration', here's the skinny from Hello Games:

"Glitches in the simulation have begun to appear. Visualised by strange floating orbs, up to 16 players can see and communicate with one another, and explore the universe together. While interaction with others is currently very limited, this is an important first step into the world of synchronous co-op in No Man’s Sky. 

"While interaction is very limited, VOIP (Voice over IP) allows proximity based voice chat with other nearby explorers. Use portals to quickly travel to more populated planets, or to meet up with friends."

Atlas Rises also promises to improve mapping and waypointing, as well as an overhaul to the game's trading system. The update also targets an expected amount of quality of life, texture and visual improvements, while terrain editing looks particularly interesting:

No Man's Sky's Atlas Rises update is expected to land later today. Full details can be found over here.  

A year ago this week No Man's Sky released on PC, and its bumpy launch was both the end of a string of troubles and the beginning of many more. In the months leading up to its release, Hello Games' expansive space exploration sandbox was hyped through the stratosphere—and I'll take my share of the blame for pouncing on every last tangible shred of news about it. Since its trailer was shown at E3 in 2015, fans had been eagerly awaiting its release, hoping it was the space game they'd always dreamed of, a near-infinite universe of infinite possibilities, mysteries, and the promise of the unknown.

At the same time, it had been a troubled lead-up to launch day. A change of release dates from June to August resulted in death threats aimed at the developer as well as Kotaku writer Jason Schreier, who broke the story. That July, a Dutch company claimed to own the "Superformula" that NMS used to procedurally generate its planets. Closer to launch, copies of the game leaked early and people were playing and streaming before it was supposed to be out.

And then, the first day NMS officially launched on PS4 (which was a few days before we got it on PC), something extremely unlikely happened. Two players wound up close enough in the near-infinite universe of NMS to arrange a meeting. The only thing more surprising than two players encountering each other on day one was that when they met, they couldn't see each other, despite Hello Games founder Sean Murray having said they'd be able to. In short, the thing that was extremely unlikely to ever happen in NMS happened immediately, but the thing that was supposed to happen if that ever happened, well, it didn't happen.

As for the game itself, there were plenty who were pleased with it, but most were disappointed and lots were downright incensed. In my review I found a lot to like but my enjoyment was hampered by the frustrating menus and endless, chore-like resource gathering. Procedural generation made sure I never saw the exact same thing twice, but after a few hours it became hard to not look at a never-before-glimpsed alien creature and think "Well that one has head-type 12 and leg-type 8, but it's pale blue and not bright blue like the last 12-8 I saw." 

The game was beautiful at times, but the dice-rolls that determined the compositions of plants, lifeforms, and planets failed to enchant for long, and I never really came away feeling like I was discovering anything truly special in No Man's Sky. The buildings, outposts, and stores littering the surface of every planet I visited didn't make me feel much like a pioneer or explorer. I wasn't the first astronaut to stand upon these planets, I was the last. Traveling to uncharted solar systems quickly lost its wonder and became a routine. Land, gather, leave, repeat.

Meanwhile, the drama surrounding the game continued. Reddit did as Reddit does, scouring every available interview, statement, and video clip of Sean Murray talking about NMS pre-launch to see if what he said then lined up with the game he eventually presented. Sony, who had partnered with Hello to market the game, suggested Murray "sounded like he was promising more features" than he could deliver, a statement that might be accurate but certainly a shade unfair, considering a Sony VP once described No Man's Sky as "potentially one of the biggest games in the history of our industry" prior to the game's launch. The hype backlash was in full swing.

The E3 trailer was laid side-by-side with footage of the game as released, and many players felt the had been misled by 'bullshots' and gameplay video that didn't represent the finished product. This even led to an investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority, though the claim was eventually dismissed.

Murray and Hello Games as a whole retreated into a void of silence for months, save the occasional patch notes detailing bug fixes. It's not too hard to understand why: when every word you've said pre-launch is being scrutinized, it's not much of an impetus to keep on talking. While I could certainly sympathize, I didn't think it was helping anyone—neither Hello Games nor the NMS community—to completely close off communication, and I suggested in September that they needed to start speaking to their community again.

When Hello did begin communicating, it was with only a few words but a boatload of new content for No Man's Sky. While silent, Hello Games had been listening to feedback, and The Foundation update included base-building features, new survival and creative modes, and plenty of fixes and improvements. Foundation was followed by Path Finder, an update that introduced hover bikes and land rovers, a fantastic photo mode, and other new features. This week we'll receive a third big update called Atlas Rises, which arrives after a winding ARG and will bring portals and new spacecraft to NMS.

That's a hell of a lot to happen in a single year to a single game, but expectations for No Man's Sky were so high they'd have been nearly impossible to live up to. I think it's great that Hello Games has remained hard at work to add new features that players have requested, but at the same time adding new parts and pieces doesn't change the core of the game, and that core is what I found ultimately disappointing. As good as they may be, it's hard to believe bases, hover bikes, portals, and ARGs will do much to bring back the mystery and curiosity that made No Man's Sky such a phenomenon before its release.

After weeks – or months? – of ARG shenanigans, it looks like Hello Games is gearing up to unveil the next major No Man's Sky update. Today they lifted the curtain just a tad, enough to reveal that update 1.3 is called Atlas Rises and that it will release some time this week.

Announced via email to the game's followers (via NeoGAF), Atlas Rises "focuses on improving the central story of No Man's Sky and adds the ability to quick travel between locations using portals". 

Patch notes are forthcoming, so there may well be more to it than that. On the topic of the ARG itself, that was studio Hello Games' attempt to "reach out and celebrate the devoted community that means so much to us". Which, well, if you enjoyed it – great. But it might well have stoked a level of hype that this expansion might not be able to live up to. 

"When we posted those cassettes we didn't know what to expect. In the last eight weeks a quarter of a million players from across the globe (174 countries, to be precise!) have come together - united by a shared love of mystery and science fiction - to form the Citizen Science Division. You’ve travelled great distances both real and virtual, undertaken complex tasks, and explored the depths of simulation theory. New friendships have been forged, and a tight-knit community has been created. Most importantly a cute hamster has a new home."

Whatever other secrets the patch notes may hold, I'm looking forward to finding out later this week, because I still play this beautiful and frustrating space adventure game a lot. 

At the beginning of June, Hello Games launched Waking Titan—a hype-stirring ARG for its open-world space roamer No Man's Sky. Complete with strange cassette tapes, snippets of vague information and an expected deluge of Reddit back-and-forthing, the alternate reality game was said to offer clues tied to NMS' incoming update 1.3. 

New images suggest this will involve portals of some sort, as well as a new ship. 

First, here's another look at the portal image: 

And here's the ship:

Speaking first to the former, one Reddit user named m-p-3 suggests the glyphs shown on the shot-facing console mirror those featured at the foot of the Waking Titan website. 

Other users also point out that the console features an extra icon that isn't listed on the ARG's site. It's worth noting that messages housed within the aforementioned cassettes have since been decoded by the NMS community to read: "portals", which of course plays into this nicely.

As for the new ship image, complete with mountainous backdrop, Reddit users seem less sure of what it might entail.

With No Man's Sky's imminent 1.3 update expected in August, my guess is that we'll hear from Sean Murray in the coming days/weeks.

Last month, Hello Games kicked off its Waking Titan ARG whereby mysterious cassette tapes were distributed to Reddit mods. This megathread documents the initiative's subsequent progress, however the latest breakthrough points to an August patch—update 1.3.

A PDF file marks the latest discovery which talks of "180 Access IDs" and "new experiences in version 1.3 of a familiar universe". The 180 IDs reference is most likely tied to the free copies Hello Games has steadily distributed throughout the ARG, while its almost certain version 1.3 of a familiar universe reflects an update of the same number.

The PDF reads as follows: 

"We want to extend our gratitude to everyone who has contributed to the Mercury Subroutine so far. We hope you have enjoyed the successful distribution of 180 Access IDs, and we hope you will also appreciate the other interesting artifacts we have in store for you going forward.

"We intend to keep the process alive until the completion of Project Waking Titan in August. It is important to mention that we are very excited by the coming Phases 2 and 3. Input from the Mercury Subroutine will pave the way toward new experiences in version 1.3 of a familiar universe. We look forward to the successful conclusion of this ground-breaking experiment. 

"Regards. S.M."

No Man's Sky's patch 1.22 brought "exocraft" buggies to every planet in the galaxy, but it remains unclear what's in store for update 1.3. Watch this space. 

Thanks, VG24/7.

It's been a few months since we last saw any activity on the No Man's Sky front, when Hello Games released the 1.22 patch that brought "exocraft" buggies to every planet in the galaxy. But it appears that something new, and potentially big, is in the works. Reddit mods have been receiving packages from the studio since late last week containing NMS merchandise of various sorts and a single, numbered audio cassette, each of them carrying a hidden message. 

There are apparently 16 audio tapes in all, and they're very slowly being uploaded to the net for examination—not all of them have been received yet, and as NeoGAF user legacyzero pointed out in his summary of events so far, "Nobody owns a goddamn cassette player." Another problem, as seen in these captures of Discord chats, is that some users don't want to share what they've received, although one of them claimed that Hello Games said it "expected this to happen and will help us out when needs be." 

So at this point it's impossible to say what information they will collectively contain, but spectrographic analyses of two of the recordings have revealed the same set of characters on both: 706s7274616p. Run that through an ROT13 converter and you end up with a proper hexadecimal string, 706f7274616c, which when converted to ASCII leaves a single word: Portal.   

The word is especially portentous in light of a note that came with at least one of the packages: "The giant gateway calls out to me, filling my mind with whispered secrets of a far-flung world." That's actually a line from the game, and also an allusion to the portals that appear on certain planets that, to this point, nobody has been able to figure out how to operate. 

It seems fairly clear that whatever is going on here—if there is in fact something happening at all—is somehow related to those structures. Passageways to exciting new planets, or even an entirely different galaxy, possibly one more in line with initial player expectations? Perhaps it will work the other way, and we'll have strange new visitors coming to us. Or it could be something much more mundane, which I'd guess is the most likely outcome—a way to meet other intergalactic explorers, maybe. 

I've emailed Hello Games for more information, and will update if and when I receive it. For now, you can keep up with the unfolding mystery in the Cassettes Megathread. 

One of the shortcomings of No Man's Sky's Path Finder update was that the three new vehicles (called exocraft) could only be driven on your home planet: that is, the planet you built your base on. To drive the buggy, hovercraft, or cargo tank, you need to build an exocraft geobay to summon your new land-based rides, and you could only build those as part of your planetary base. (You could also use the geobays of someone else's base to summon your cars, provided you were lucky enough to discover such a base on your travels.)

Patch 1.22, released today, changes that for the better. Now you can craft your vehicles' geobays on any planet you like, meaning you can summon your wheels and go bouncing around on the surface of any planet you happen to be on, even if you don't have a base there. This will give you far more freedom to explore with your new vehicles, or, like me, to callously run over every rock, tree, and alien creature in your path. See, I've been finding the new vehicles have turned me into a real space-jerk.

Here are the full patch notes:

• Exocraft Geobays can now be crafted on any planet - this means vehicles can be summoned anywhere (whereas previously, vehicles could only be summoned on your home planet).
• HUD markers have been added to allow you to easily navigate back to an Exocraft Geobay
• Fixed a bug that caused vehicle weapons and mining lasers not to drain charge
• Fixed an issue which could cause the Starship cockpit to vanish when exiting
• Fixed some freighter door texture issues
• Fixed a rare crash when scanning from a vehicle
• Fixed a rare crash when feeding creatures
• Fixed an issue which caused weapons to miss-fire when using Plasma Launcher
• During warp the quick menu now hides properly as intended

I've been taking No Man's Sky's new Path Finder update for a spin: it's another big addition to Hello Games' sprawling space exploration game. As with Foundation before it, Path Finder's new features are mostly centered around those who want to plant stakes on a planet or in a system and stay a while, rather than continuously and restlessly explore the galaxy.

The main draw, naturally, are the ground-based vehicles added in the update: a rugged all-terrain buggy, a speedy hoverbike that can skim over the surface, and a massive, lumbering cargo crawler known as the Colossus. I'm here to report that these vehicles have instantly turned me into a complete asshole—or perhaps they've simply brought out the asshole that I've always been, deep in my heart.

I'm not sure this was the intention, but my immediate feeling while driving these new vehicles is essentially: "Yeah, fuck this planet." Previously we could skim the surface in our ships or jetpack around in our spacesuits. But now we have tires, great big knobby rubber tires, and these tires change everything. The cars allow you to completely dominate the surface in thoughtless and destructive way, like an interplanetary version of Grand Theft Auto. You can run over alien creatures, smash through trees and rocks, and blow things up with mounted lasers and blasters. And, that's pretty much what I've been doing non-stop.

I'm not saying I didn't destroy things in No Man's Sky prior to this update. You have to if you want to get anywhere. I mined rocks, trees, asteroids, and I even occasionally killed a few innocent creatures. But the destruction before Path Finder felt so limited in scope, apart from sometimes mining an entire deposit of copper or heredium. Land on a planet, carve up a few pocketfuls of minerals, and quietly leave before the sentinels get their tin knickers in a bunch.

No more. Now I'm crushing, smashing, blasting, ramming, and ruining everything in my path. The old me would have scanned and cataloged that beast you see above. Now, it's dead, my license plate imprinted in its soft, deceased belly. I don't know what you were, gentle creature, and I don't care. Sorry, infinite worlds and never-before-seen lifeforms. You're just in my way.

Moving on: base sharing and racing are also new to the update, and I've toyed with that as well. Bases are discoverable, which means you might be visiting a new (to you) planet and simply find someone's base (here's video of someone on PS4 finding and exploring another player's base, and he's even able to use the base's vehicles docks to summon his own vehicles). Otherwise, players can upload their bases and race tracks to the Steam Workshop, and others can download them and check them out. I'm not entirely sure of the mechanics, but it looks like you basically download an instance of the planet to walk around in. Progress isn't saved while you're there, you're just sort of experiencing a copy of another player's world and work.

Racing is sort of enjoyable, but not as a race, more as an excursion across the surface an unfamiliar planet. I used Icreaka's test racing course, and It wasn't a heart-pounding experience but it was a lovely trip up from checkpoint to checkpoint, up and down hills and through interesting rock formations. I wonder if spaceship racing will be added in the future: I think that might be a bit more thrilling, honestly.

One welcome addition is the new photo mode—which was worked on by Dead End Thrills'd Duncan Harris—especially since No Man's Sky was already a great game to take pictures in. The new mode lets you pause the action, jump-into third person mode so you can view your ship, add filters, and even place the sun wherever you like, useful for creating more interesting shots but especially useful on planets, where you can turn night into day, morning into evening, dusk into a few minutes before dusk, and so on.

My only wish is that entering photo mode was done with a single click of a key: right now, it's accomplished by pressing X to bring up the little menu, then cycling to the photo mode option, then pressing F. So it takes a couple seconds, which can make it challenging to take action shots of, say, your buggy ramming an innocent alien cow to death. Still, it's a really nice feature, and one I love to see in games.

There's a lot more to the update, which I outlined here. I haven't really messed with much else yet, I've been far too busy absentmindedly running over unique alien lifeforms and leaving a trail of smashed alien cacti, and occasionally pausing for snapshots.

There's a saying: Take only pictures, leave only footprints. Clearly whoever said that didn't have a giant space car.

Update: The Path Finder patch is now live. You can download it on Steam.

No Man's Sky's Path Finder update, which was just announced by Hello Games a day ago, has been revealed. You can read all about the update, which adds ground vehicles, "online base-sharing," high and ultra resolution textures, and the ability to own multiple ships, right here at the official site. There's a trailer for the update above as well.

We aren't surprised to see a land vehicle added, since an enterprising Redditor spotted a buggy model in No Man's Sky's Foundation update back in November, but there are several new space-whips beyond just a buggy, including a hovercraft and a massive cargo vehicle. There are also vehicle-based missions you can acquire by hiring a Vy'keen Technician for your planetary base.

The update also promises that you can "share" your base: "Bases are now shared online and can be discovered as players explore." You can also upload your base to the Steam Workshop, where others can download it, visit it, and rate it. You can even "Hone your driving skills by building your own race circuit on your home planet. Find the most interesting planet, create a time trial and challenge others to beat it."

I've asked for some clarification on base and race sharing, though it definitely doesn't sound like you'll be able to interact with other players while you're exploring their bases or racing on their tracks. An email from Hello Games says, however, "messages can be left for other players" which seems to indicate that you'll be racing and nosing around in their bases on your own.

You'll now be able to own multiple ships—a popular community request—and store them on your freighter. Ships can also now be specialized between fighters, shuttles, haulers, and explorers, which "improves performance in specific areas." And, when buying a new ship, you'll be able to trade in your current ship for a discount. (Finally!)

There are other additions, like new traders, including a building trader who will visit your base. Your standing with factions will come into play, because "traders will only sell the best technology to their closest allies." More base-building options have been added, including colored lights, stairs, and observation domes.

There's a new permadeath mode for those who enjoy being horribly punished, and a new photo mode that will allow you to take pictures of your ship in third-person view, add filters, and adjust the lighting to your satisfaction. In other words, expect to see a lot of screenshots being tweeted over the next few weeks.

And, there are some "quality of life" improvements:

• NPC interaction text now appears faster, and can now be skipped.
• The option to return to ‘Game Mode Select’ has been added, allowing players to quickly change game mode
• A Mission Log has been added to allow players to track multiple objectives
• The user interface has been made easier to read in many places, and background graphics have been added
• Atmospheric low-flight has been adjusted and improved
• Ships, weapons, vehicles, freighters and bases can now all be renamed.
• Long-clicks have been removed in many menus places to allow for faster interface navigation

That's a pretty big update! Naturally, I'll be playing No Man's Sky to check out the patch, leaving you to breathlessly await my impressions, which I imagine will be up in a day or two. Then again, you might be busy playing it yourself: according to Sean Murray, the day the Foundation update was released, which added base-building and a survival mode, around a million players jumped in to check it out.

We'll let you know when the patch is live (it is), and in the meantime, here are a few 4K screenshots.

Hello Games has announced that a new update will arrive for No Man's Sky this week. Called the Path Finder Update, it "introduces a new vehicle that will aid home planet exploration, building on the Foundation Update to hint at a path ahead for the future." We're pretty certain this vehicle will be a land-based buggy of some sort, based on the hidden files found by Redditor eegandj back in November of last year (the image above is from eegandi's video of importing the model into the game).

Hello Games' announcement continues:

"Shortly after we launched the Foundation Update, we released a number of patches to address issues reported by players before beginning work on the Path Finder update. We were surprised and excited by the response to Foundation, and we have been listening carefully to community feedback since then."

We don't know what else the update will contains, but detailed patch notes are promised when the Path Finder Update goes live.