'No Man's Sky' Releases Huge New 'Foundation' Update (thenextweb.com)

"No Man's Sky changed a great deal this morning, getting new modes and a ton of gameplay tweaks thanks to update 1.1, the largest one yet," reports Kotaku. Calling it "the first of many free updates," the game's developers introduced a new Minecraft-style Creative Mode which "allows players to explore the universe without limits, and build a huge base," plus a tougher Survival Mode, "creating a much more challenging endurance experience." The Next Web calls it "features that really should have been in the game from Day One." Now, when you stumble upon a desolate outpost, you can build your own base on it, which can be upgraded with new housing, hydroponics, research, and storage buildings. If all goes well, you'll start to attract alien settlers who bring their own skills to your new society. As your stockpiles of resources begin to swell, you'll want to schlep them across the galaxy to other bases and trade terminals. Which is where freighters come in... Oh, and did I mention you can now stack items five times per inventory slot, meaning you can carry more stuff? Handy. "The discussion around No Man's Sky since release has been intense and dramatic," Hello Games announced Friday, describing update 1.1 as "putting in place a foundation for things to come... the first small step in a longer journey." Hello Games founder Sean Murray tweeted "We're getting better as quickly as we can for the players who invested in us," adding "Thank you for sticking with us." At 2 a.m. this morning, he tweeted "If you could have lived our lives over the last months, you'd know how meaningful this is," adding "Here's the update..."

Comments

So the news is that it still doesn't make good

[drinkypoo]

The news here is that a minuscule percentage of the original supposed functionality is a "new" feature.

It sounded too good to be true. Guess what?

I kickstarted the game from the Space Quest guys and well, you know. Not even thinking about backing another game until that one actually exists.

Re:So the news is that it still doesn't make good

[binarylarry]

At least they aren't like Stardock and are trying to SELL this update (to their customers who they screwed with a botched initial release).

Since when is a press release a story?

[BarbaraHudson]

And why would anyone believe, or even care, what Hello Games says now considering how far from their hype the original release was? What next - "Go to millions of systems to collect Pokemons?"

Re:Since when is a press release a story?

[thegarbz]

The real story here is that Hello Games still think they haven't burnt all their karma and their house down.

It take skill to screw up as royally as they did. Their name is forever tainted. The story here is that they still exist. I would have thought they dissolved and changed their name before daring to show themselves again.

Re:Since when is a press release a story?

[guises]

I care, a little. Everyone who didn't foolishly pre-purchse the game (you know, like you're never supposed to do) probably has some interest in whether and when it will turn into something worth playing.

Re:Since when is a press release a story?

[vel-ex-tech]

Just wait until Star Citizen releases. I've seen people on the forums who have spent nearly $1,000 (yes, one thousand real world US dollars) backing that game to get one of the capital ships at launch. I think only one or two of the low-end capital ships (yachts?) are playable so far, supposedly another one is coming in December with 2.6. But the single-player game, Squadron 42, was already supposed to be out and now we're just hoping we'll get a few missions come January.

I suppose at least whatever we get will blow No Man's Sky away. I'm just hoping it won't be Freelancer 2.0 with more polys. Well, scratch that. I backed it for the basic Aurora MR package and I'd be perfectly happy if it were Freelancer 2.0 with planets that actually orbit. I still play Freelancer Discovery every now and then for the hell of it. Heh, I'm sure the $1,000+ backers will raise hell, though.

never happy huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

i don't even play games, but after all the negativity and hate they received... they actually dug in and made an update nobody expected to have came. i for one am glad to see them try to fix their mistakes. other game makers could learn from this because many games ship and the company takes the $ and runs, never even trying to make their customers happy. after all the hate they received, they deserve a little respect for attempting to make it right.

I'm going to build a dome

[Hognoxious]

If all goes well, you'll start to attract alien settlers who bring their own skills to your new society.

Skills like drug dealing and rape?

No thanks. I'm going to build a dome over mine, and make the bug-eyed monsters pay for it.

Re:I Already Stopped Playing

[thegarbz]

I Already Stopped Playing

EVERYONE has already stopped playing. There was 500 active players on steam last week, down from the 220,000 when the game launched.

All 400 active users will love this!

[thegarbz]

Okay so normally we joke about a low number of users when talking about Windows phones, or BeOS users. But really Steam lists 400 active users last week.

The game launched with some 220k active users which within a month was reduced to less than 10k. The game is dead. The it is truly amazing that Hello Games haven't abandoned it completely. They are literally now adding features to a game that pretty much no one plays and that has gone down as one of the (if not *the*) biggest disappointment in video game history since the release of Duke Nukem Forever, and the latter had no where near the hype surrounding it.

Foundation update

[Chris Mattern]

Hari Seldon not included.

It does quite a bit actually

[HalAtWork]

- Base building
- Teleporters work
- Farming / Biodome / Specimen collection
- Making camp
- Setting up harvesters
- Leave messages for other players on terminals
- Purchase/manage/customize/enter freighters
- Grow crops on board, recruit crew
- New resources & tech
- More NPC variation
- Better cockpit indicators and panels in ships, more scanning options
- New anti aliasing options on PS4
- Added free exploration and survival game modes
- Tons of audio/visual/gameplay tweaks

So it adds a lot of what was missing, and some additional stuff.

Missing:
- Sand worms
- Varied planetary physics
- In-atmosphere battles
- Rivers
- Ringed planets
- Hacking locked doors
- Radio chatter
- Seeing other players
- Asteroid landings

The missing list is getting smaller.