Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.>
No Man’s Sky has changed a great deal since the initial release, switching from a pure, lonely exploration experience to a game with base building, harder survival-based modes, rudimentary multiplayer and a lot more. I still prefer that original lonely exploration, though. (more…)
No Man’s Sky [official site] patch 1.37 has added a new (but toggle-able so therefore optional) ship control scheme for mouse and keyboard.
Hello Games say: “This option can be toggled, and changes ship controls to be cursor based, meaning you’ll be able to direct your ship easily using your mouse”. Pip says: “I just booted up the game and hopped in my ship, immediately becoming distracted by the new interface which is less ace piloting and more kind of like pulling a ball through the air using an elastic band?”
It might take some getting used to is what I’m saying. (more…)
In the fifth patch since No Man's Sky's massive Atlas Rises update last month, developer Hello Games has fixed an annoying save issue and added more variety to the way ships handle.
Some players were previously unable to save their game if they'd played for a very long time, which must have been infuriating. Now there should be no more issues.
On the ship handling side, different types and classes of ships now have distinct handling styles, which could give players more incentive to save up for a new craft. "Each individual ship now has procedural handling and speed characteristics, based on their type and class," Hello Games said.
There's a whole cargo hold of other tweaks under the hood, many of which relate to improving the user interface (which is now easier to navigate with the keyboard) and fixing visual anomalies, such as large white markers showing up permanently over certain buildings. Read the full list of changes in the patch notes.
When I wrote about a previous patch I asked whether now was a good time to jump on board. The response was a resounding yes, with people saying it's now close to the game they wanted when it launched. It's good to see it being continually supported, and hopefully it will only keep improving from here.
If you're interested in more reading about the current state of the game, check out Chris's deep dive (written pre-Atlas Rises).
No Man's Sky's Atlas Rises update has added a bunch of interesting biomes that Chris has enjoyed exploring. But it's also brought some bugs to the game—bugs that developer Hello Games hopes to squash with its latest patch.
The update will fix a number of issues, the most pressing of which was players being unable to save their game because of artificially bloated save files. Unfortunately, some players are still having trouble post-patch, and Hello Games says it is continuing to investigate.
The patch also fixes bugs linked to the terrain editor, glyphs, unresponsive NPCs and some missing animations, all of which are detailed in the patch notes.
But it's not just a repair job: the patch tweaks teleporters so that players can now warp from one space station to another, rather than just back to their base. It should take a bit of hassle out of getting around its functionally infinite world.
It's the third patch in the last 10 days, and you can expect more to come to fix other problems with the Atlas Rises update.
I've still not jumped into No Man's Sky, but most of what I've read about the update— which overhauled the game's central story, added a new mission system and introduced watered-down online co-op—has been positive. For those that have played around with it: is now a good time to hop on board?
