Perhaps inevitably, some of us are trying to downplay the surprise emoji but I am actually thinking the opposite. Here is my reasoning:

Originally the idea for the Void Mother content seemed to be four parts over one year. We mostly expected the ending to be a big update and result in the main content update of 2023.

This would have presumably included the new Space Stations and we would expect some significant impact of the Void Mother story. Maybe a faction system (hinted in a couple of titles) or a dramatic shift in how the anomaly characters interact with us.

Then, as we approached the end of 2023, a few prominent streamers were contacted by a marketing company on behalf of HG to make some form of review video or a ‘why I play NMS’ video. This was supposedly going to coincide with an expedition and twitch drops.

This activity suddenly stopped and we got the Light No Fire announcement. HG didn’t ever put out the expected fourth expedition and they adjusted the redux season accordingly.

Then we got what was probably the planned twitch drop alongside a free play period. This certainly seemed like the delayed end of year content but the expedition itself was more like an introduction to the game and not the expected ‘part four’.

So, my theory is that the end of 2023 was originally going to be bigger than Omega but they shifted lanes for the LNF announcement. They then decided to separate out the new Expedition System because this was bound to have unforeseen issues. They even dropped it in Experimental for community testing. Something they haven’t done since Starbirth needed testing.

So we are still awaiting the end of the Void Mother story and at least I expect this to have big ramifications for the game. It is presumably something they have been working on for well over a year and I would expect it to be content heavy. My expectations are that we will see a shift in the Dissonant Systems, and that the way they are currently was just temporary.

We have an early Easter and what better time to drop new playable content?

Thoughts on possible sales:

We also tend to see sales for smaller updates but not always for larger content updates. And we have no evidence of sales before Easter yet. There is a “Dinos Vs. Robots Fest” scheduled for 26th on Steam and at a pinch HG could include themselves in that. But do they have time to slot in a cross platform sale considering the game was briefly on sale the other day? Probably not.