Let me preface by saying that any new free content, on a game of No Mans Sky age, should be welcomed and appreciated…regardless of what’s entailed within it. So I am very appreciative of Hello Games continued support and development of No Mans Sky.

With that out of the way let’s get down to the reason behind this post. I am a day one player of NMS, and own the game on (3) platforms. I love where it started at ( yes even on day one amazingly ) and I loved almost all, if not all, content drops since.

Let’s be real though, NMS hasn’t really given its veteran community any substantial content in the last (2) content drops. Some would contend that expeditions are content, and sure they are, for those that enjoy expeditions….some don’t and I’m real big against time locked rewards of any kind…especially if those time locked rewards are pit behind tedious repetitive content walls.

I understand that Hello Games needed to address Switch players problems and bring that version into line with other versions, as well as PSVR, but what about is that have been around for years?

Ultimately limited content updates like this one will not keep me from playing one of the most impactful games of the last decade, but Id be remised if I didn’t say I was disappointed. We all love this game and want this game to continue to grow, let’s just hope that sooner than later we get an update that actually adds content for the vets still playing the game.

-and it’s because of one addition. The collected knowledge tab is literally just lore tabs for No Man’s Sky. I’ve always loved the lore and found the wiki to be very lacking in information, and frequently find myself trying to go through old entries trying to piece together the universe of NMS. The thing about NMS lore, is that it’s very under rated and unexplored. This feature they’ve added is probably something they could’ve never added to the game, and 99.9% of players wouldn’t care. But to players like me, it’s something I’ve wanted since the beginning. Thank you HelloGames for being awesome devs.

The conversation about tech slots and activated Indium has really sidelined just how great a job they’ve done with the Switch port.

There’s definitely some roon for improvement with the UI, touch screen integration, and expansion of custom game settings, but goddamn, the game feels really smooth considering its “only” 30fps.

And while there’s obvious graphical compromises to make this miracle port possible, its not nearly as compromised as I’d expected, and it packs in a surprising amount of detail. I notice distance objects tend to blur a little when you’re on the move, but when you come to a full stop the details sharpen up pretty quick, there’s obviously some clever ‘hierarchy’ the game has to determine what needs to look clear and what can be subordinated in a given frame. The results won’t be as flattering in a side by side with high end PCs, but it does a great job of giving your brain enough details to fill in any gaps subconsciously.

And some nice shading and lighting techniques are preserved from the main consoles /PC build, especially that sun-kissed translucent effect that massive funghi tend to have when the sun’s hitting the right angle.

The work they’ve done in previous updates on the overall scale of the world and its relative asset sizing translates well to the small screen, giving the impression of inhabiting these massive planets with imposing mountains, dense woodlands, and intimidating cave networks that feel easy to get lost in without a terrain manipulator as a last ditch “fuck outta here” measure. For a handheld game, the world it presents feels bigger than it has any right to be on such a dinky platform.

And the autosave system clearly seems designed with the Switch’s pick-up-put-down gameplay ethos. I don’t think I’ve made a single manual save since starting up a new save post-4.0. (Constructed save points still do double duty as permanent nav markers, so nothing is really lost here.) And with the new custom game parameters you can opt in to useful features that reduce the moment to moment busywork that might otherwise feel laborious in context of the ’20 minute loop’ that Switch lends itself to by its portable nature.

All in all, I’ve been playing since 2016 launch, and this is the most significant platform-driven update I’ve played since PSVR. (And we’ve still got the second-generation VR update to come!)

To be frank, I’ve often felt like I often preferred the ‘idea’ of No Man’s Sky and what it represents as a sandbox experience, rather than the more mundane reality of actually playing it. Maybe it’s the long boot times on PS4, but I often felt like the friction points of the grinding loop kept me from sinking into more substantive play sessions, and as a result I’d usually just derp around until my launch thrusters ran out, then not be bothered to go refuel, and so my playthrough would just fizzle out.

Now it’s on handheld, and it’s got custom game modifiers to tailor the moment to moment gameplay, I’ve found a sweet spot where I’m actually focused on doing the story, heading to galactic core, etc, and not getting bogged down in minutiae every time my mining laser or launch thruster runs out, nor getting slowed down by sprint being tied to life support systems. The pace of my moment to moment gameplay finally lines up with the spacefaring fantasy I picture in my head when I think about what No Man’s Sky represents.

So yeah, I think that’s pretty cool. 😊