Despite a controversial start, Hello Games is continuing to evolve their space-exploration simulator into a far superior beast.
No Man’s Sky may not have lived up to its lofty expectations, but developer Hello Games eventually returned from hiding to deliver a massive update months after its launch on PC and PS4. Following last November’s “Foundation Update 1.1“, Hello Games released the new “Path Finder Update 1.2” yesterday morning for both versions of the game.
The latest update features a plethora of new content focused on player traversal and the start of a potential online community. Explorers now have the ability to construct “Exocrafts”, or land-based vehicles: The “Nomad” is the fastest of the three new vehicles and possess the ability to glide across water, but the small frame means lighter vehicle inventory storage; the “Roamer” is the standard Exocraft, capable of traversing across most planetary surfaces; though it may be the slowest of the new crafts, the “Colossus” is a gigantic resource-mining Exocraft equipped with Mining Lasers and the largest storage space of the land-based vehicles. Once players hire a Vy’keen Technician at their home base, they can upgrade their Exocrafts with superior engines, armor, offensive abilities and more efficient harvesting tools. Various models of the Multi-Tool have been added, being the resource-centric “Pistol”, combat-oriented “Rifle”, and the “Experimental” Multi-Tool oriented towards scanning and observation; the “Alien” Multi-Tool is the rarest variation, though no further details have been revealed.
A true face-to-face multiplayer mode is still far off on the horizon, but players now have the option of creating and sharing custom vehicle races with the “Race Initiator”; the track is charted by first dropping the Race Initiator within the “Base Building” zone, then by placing “Checkpoint Markers” along any route the player chooses. Added as part of Foundation Update 1.1, Path Finder Update 1.2 more than doubles the amount of available crafting materials for the Base Building system. Wood, Stone, Metal and other aesthetic panels have been added, along with a selection of new furniture and wall decor; players can also leave notes within their Base for other online players.
No Man’s Sky players have the ability to take screenshots through the PS4 Share option and Steam’s internal Screenshots hotkey, but a proper internal Photo Mode has been implemented into both versions of the game, complete with filters, free camera movement, the ability to change the time of day, and adjust atmospheric conditions (clouds, fog density, weather, etc.). Visual enhancements have been added for both versions, including 4K rendering, HBAO, HDR Mode for compatible displays, improved post-processing and PS4 Pro Delta Color Compression; artifacting and performance issues regarding water and spotlight rendering are among many other visual features addressed in the update.
No Man’s Sky is available for the PS4 and PC. As stated above, the PS4 version now supports the visual enhancements of the PS4 Pro hardware. The Steam release now supports Steam Workshop, enabling users to create their own fan-generated content. The complete log of additions, patches and bug-fixes can be found on the official No Man’s Sky website.
ThePlatformer 