No Man's Sky has enjoyed a wave of positive Steam reviews following this week's NEXT update. But a number of PC players have had issues with game-breaking bugs tied to what appears to be corrupted save files. Patch 1.51 was released today to address the corrupted save issue. There are also fixes for bugs that were causing crashes plus some other small tweaks and improvements, including the ability construct Frigate Terminals in Creative Mode, which was absent.

See the complete patch notes below. These were tested on the No Man's Sky experimental server, so those experiencing the corrupted save issues will hopefully find this solves their problem. Players can also submit bug reports here.

• Fixed an issue where players who saved after partially repairing some items of technology would be unable to load that savegame. Please note that if the game has not been resaved, then progress has not been lost and will be recovered.
• Fixed a crash caused by memory corruption
• Fixed a crash in the animation system
• Fixed a crash when saving on a freighter
• Fixed a crash when fleet expeditions end without their capital ship present
• Fixed a number of memory leaks
• Fixed an issue where warping in multiplayer could cause players to spawn on a planet rather than in space
• Fixed an issue where freighter bases would be in the wrong position
• Fixed an issue where the build menu could crash if there was nothing available to build
• Fixed an issue where players would be unable to warp during the antimatter stage of the tutorial
• Fixed an issue where the mission destination would be incorrectly reported as in another system at the Hermetic Seal phase of the tutorial
• Fixed an issue where upgrade modules installed in the main Exosuit inventory would not be saved correctly.
• Fixed an issue where portable refiners placed near each other would share inventories
• Fixed an issue where the cockpit of some ships would continually open and close
• Fixed an issue where new controls were missing from the controls page
• Fixed a crash in creature routines
• Fixed a crash when multiple players put ammunition into a refiner
• Fix for occasional crash when receiving mission rewards
• Fix for crash when adjusting anisotropic filtering settings in the graphics options menu
• Fix for potential crash in geometry streaming
• Improvements to texture caching for AMD GPUs
• Fixed an issue where some players still had physical nanites in their inventory that could not be spent at vendors
• Granted players nanites when they dismantle their Obsolete Technology – spend nanites on new upgrades in Space Stations
• Added a tutorial mission to guide players through the restoration of their old base
• Fixed an issue where players were unable to build Frigate Terminals in Creative Mode
• Fixed an issue where S-Class ships changed appearance
• Fixed an issue where players were unable to build the Base Cache on their freighter to retrieve compensation for the loss of their freighter base
• Fixed an issue where some Exosuit technology was not converted to Obsolete Technology. Please note this does not apply retroactively to save games that have already been upgraded.
• Improved the mapping of old substances to new substances during the save upgrade. Please note this does not apply retroactively to save games that have already been upgraded.

"Can we give this game a round of applause for being one of the biggest redemption [stories] in game history?" reads one of No Man's Sky's most recent Steam reviews. Having launched its NEXT update earlier this week, players have returned to the space explorer in droves—many of whom seem to be enjoying their experience.

Of the 3,432 people that reviewed No Man's Sky on Steam over the last 30 days, 84 percent did so positively. As Murray points out above, this has raised its Overall Steam review rating to Mixed. And as Chris says, it seems that, two years later, the hype for No Man's Sky is back. Compare these figures to launch day, when 15,875 Steam reviews praised NMS for what it was; while 18,663 did not.

From now through 10am PST / 6pm BST, No Man's Sky is half-price on Steam—selling for £19.99/$29.99, down from £39.99/$59.99. 

Follow the link above if you fancy it, but, before you do, check out Pip and Chris's hands-on thoughts. The former explains what it's like to explore No Man's Sky Next with three other people. The latter asks: Is multiplayer really what No Man's Sky needs?

Even better than finding an interesting planet in No Man's Sky is finding an interesting system, where the planets form something of a theme. In my early days of playing, I found an Earth-like planet with a moon that looked a lot like our own (at least from space). While exploring the Next expansion this week, I discover another cool system. It has two planets, one of which my ship's scanner considers a 'Paradise Planet,' while the other it calls a 'Forsaken Planet.' Good and bad. Goofus and Gallant.

It seems like a nice duo to compare against one another, but then I notice a third planet further off in the distance. My scanner labels it a 'Terraforming Catastrophe'. That's a designation that's been in the game before Next arrived, but I still want to check it out. So I land and discover the saddest, shabbiest planet I've ever visited.

When I enter the atmosphere and approach the surface, it's like the color drains out of the entire game. That image above, that's not a filter. That's just how it is here. It's like Dorothy leaving Oz and going back to Kansas. Here's a short video to show you what I mean:

There are plenty of lifeless, airless, somewhat dismal planets in No Man's Sky, but this one feels much different. My first impulse is to leave, but I'm sort of intrigued by the world. Not only is it colorless, it also makes me colorless, draining the vibrancy out of my ship, my rockets, even out of my own character. It's almost monochrome, except for the water which looks brown like... well, sewage certainly come to mind. Also interesting is that unlike a lot of the darker, more morbid planets I've visited in No Man's Sky is that there's actually life here, both plant an animal.

What there isn't, however, is any joy to be found, even in normally enjoyable tasks like scanning creatures and plant life. The plants are tall and bulbous and expel clouds of fumes into the sky, which is the color of a fart (if farts had a color). Storms roll in every few minutes, not dramatic ones, just a bit of wind and rain and fog that dampen what little color there is here to begin with. I get into the habit of looking through my scanner simply because it adds some green and blue tint to the world, but the moment I stop everything is dull and gray again. 

I decide to feed one of the little crab critters scuttling around just to give something on this planet a little happiness. The critter eats and the smiley face icon appears. Less than a second later he's mauled to death by another creature, which then starts to eat him. As the predator feeds on the dead crabbie, I burn it with my laser. It doesn't run away as my mining laser burns it. It doesn't even look up or care that I'm killing it. It just eats while it's dying, and then it dies. Anything to escape this planet, I guess. I feed another crab and it too is summarily killed by another predator. What the hell, man? Is happiness against the law here?

I fly around a bit more, thinking maybe I'll stay a while and scan every species, maybe even find something that appears not quite so miserable. I take a swim into toilet-water sea, finding a few drab sharks and some squids whose heads inflate to propel them around. I eventually find eight of the nine species, and head out to try to locate the ninth.

I fly around landing here and there, seeing only the same crabbies and turtle-panthers and boars and sharks, the same fart blossom plants, and not much else. I kill a few fart blossoms and no sentinels even fly over to scrutinize me. Even the extremely touchy metal guardians of galactic flora don't care about Sadworld, which is what I name the planet. Blow up whatever you like.

Half the world is brown ocean, so I check out more of the coastline and some islands. Islands are always nice, right? Even those floating in a sea of toilet water? Most of the islands on Sadworld are completely bland circles, the least imaginative kind of island you could picture. On one I find a single tree, a single crab, and a single boar. The boar promptly kills the crab. I didn't even get a chance to feed it.

One island looks just like a Google Maps indicator. It's just pointing to more brown water, though, as if to say "Want to visit? Well, this is all we've got. Toilet water, a bunch of it. It's right here. You probably don't want to visit, though. Whatever."

I finally locate and scan the final creature of Sadworld. It's half-boar, half-fish, and it's swimming in an awkward circle in the poop ocean, completely alone, which feels appropriate. I can't think of anything else to do here but leave. I climb out of the sea and pause before getting in my ship, admiring the view of the ringed paradise planet above.

Clouds immediately roll in and block it from view. Of course they do! There's no happiness allowed here on Sadworld. Not even for a moment. 

So, yesterday was weird. No Man's Sky sat atop the global top sellers list on Steam at a price of $60 while I sat there endlessly refreshing Sean Murray's Twitter, waiting for the download to begin. It was like it was 2016 again—though No Man's Sky did go on sale for 50% off and this time players could actually see each other in the game.

I wasn't the only one blasting off into the Next expansion: at its peak yesterday, No Man's Sky had 41,861 concurrent players on Steam. Naturally, that's not close to the all-time peak after the 2016 launch, which saw over 200 thousand concurrents. It's still twice as many the Atlas Rises update drew in 2017, which pulled in around 20,000 concurrents, according to Steam Charts.

With No Man's Sky selling well this week, it's impossible to say how many of these players are trying it for the first time and how many are returning after a break to check out the new features. And of course there are those who have been playing regularly all along. At this moment, No Man's Sky is the tenth most played game on Steam.

Update: Because of the delay in bringing multiplayer support to No Man's Sky on GOG, it is offering an extended refund policy on the game. Until 3 pm PT/6 pm ET on July 29, NMS owners can request a refund regardless of when they purchased the game.  

Original story:

Owners of the DRM-free version of No Man's Sky, which is only available on GOG.com, will not have access to the game's new multiplayer features until later this year. That's according to a joint statement made by GOG and Hello Games on the GOG forums, where the news was released roughly three hours ago.

"From launch, the DRM-free edition of No Man's Sky will include all single-player content introduced by NEXT: third-person mode, upgraded visuals, better base building, player customization, and more," the statement reads.

"However the multiplayer component will not be ready at launch; we expect it to be released later this year as full multiplayer parity remains in the pipeline."

The post goes on to explain the delay, pointing to the complexity of adding the functionality across a variety of platforms at once. The Next update has rolled out  across Steam and PS4, this week as well as launching with the newly released Xbox One version."For a small, independent studio, developing the feature across multiple platforms is a hugely ambitious and technical challenge which resulted in this delayed release," the statement reads. "Hello Games is however joining forces with GOG.COM to introduce full multiplayer via the GOG Galaxy platform. We appreciate your immense support and patience."

No Man's Sky Next went live earlier today, and Chris has already experimented with the game's frankly weird player customization feature. Expect to hear more from him on the update shortly.

The No Man's Sky Next Upate has arrived, giving us both co-op multiplayer and a third-person perspective. It's also given us something new to consider: how we look to ourselves and others. When you visit a space station, you'll find an Appearance Modifier terminal which lets you not only choose your race—Gek, Vy'keen, Korvax, Traveler, or Anomaly (boring human)—but also lets you pick from a number of helmets, heads, eyes, and beaks, plus a bunch of boots, gloves, backpacks, and armor. In the video above (and here on YouTube), I cycle through a number of the interesting options available to you.

The Traveler race, in particular, has some weird heads to consider. Also, keep in mind that playing as a Gek, for example, won't let you become instantly fluent in the Gek language. If you want to converse with aliens, you'll still need to pick up the language the old-fashioned way.

But at least now you can look the part.