I have been through the game in nearly all of its permutations for a regular 4 years since launch. Participated in Waking Titan, in theorycrafting, all of it. Still use my day 1 save nearly all the time. I welcomed every new feature with open arms. The expeditions – chef’s kiss. Various features like derelict freighters and changes to base building – great. This patch, from a lore perspective – amazing! The customization and combat features – excellent! Hell, I even got a kick out of some stuff I missed, like the settlements.

But over time, every instance of my return to the game has been less lengthy until I began outright skipping more and more patches (been almost 2 years until I returned to this one) as the one thing I wanted to see in patch notes was nowhere to be seen.

Planet generation and exploration, at present, feel formulaic and sterile.

I don’t even have to visit a cold planet to know what it looks like. it’s the exact same every time with a difference in tree density. I barely have to visit a lush planet as they are mostly recycled between themselves and every single one has superheated storms. With very little difference, I am seeing the exact same generation and planets I have been seeing since around NEXT came out. The very same building blocks. They do not feel like planets, they feel like biomes. Animals are great to ride and befriend, but wild animals behave and look the exact same as in launch – chaotic.

I want to sink my teeth deep into developing my character, my journey, my fleet, my base and my empire. Hell, even finally commit to a galaxy center permadeath run. But what is the point if the exploration feels dead and if I feel like I’ve traversed every single planet a dozen times before? What was supposed to be the main attraction of the game and the expectation of millions of permutations has been, as of now, completely abandoned for the sake of easier introduction of new features in predictable worlds.

So I ask – can Hello Games crown all the great features they introduced over the years with an actual planet and animal generation overhaul? Can they truly give us long term explorers some new wonders to gaze in this endless universe? Can they, at last, provide the universe the depth that matches its width, even at the cost of a universe reset?

I believe they can and I hope they will.

• Plaque interactions will no longer loop back to the first piece of history for that planet’s race after completing every interaction.

• Abandoned building interactions will no longer loop back to the beginning of the first story after completing every interaction.

• Players joining a friend’s game directly from the frontend but without a valid save slot will now have the option to customise their difficulty settings.

• Fixed an issue that could cause invalid text to appear in various mission information fields when several Planetary Drop Pod missions were active at the same time.

• Fixed an issue that could cause all planetary Drop Pod missions in the same system to complete when loading a save where one had been recently completed.

• Fixed an issue that clamped the craftable amount for an item at the size of its current stack – crafting amounts can now be adjusted up to the current free inventory space.

• Fixed an issue that caused some UI elements to overlap the bottom of the inventory screen.

• Fixed a number of issues that could cause the shortcut button to take players directly to a newly unlocked guide entry to fail to work correctly.

• Fixed a number of issues that could cause inventory numbers to spill outside of their icon in particular languages.

• Fixed a rare issue that could cause invalid items to be awarded from derelict freighter containers.

• Fixed an issue that could cause the wrong inventory to be increased when unlocking new slots.

• Fixed an issue that could cause some journey milestone guidance missions to become stuck in a loop.

• Fixed inventory readability issues caused the background to be too transparent in VR.

• Fixed an issue that could cause the shortcut button to take players directly to a newly discovered mineral/plant/creature to fail to work correctly.

• The shield strength, hull strength, and combat manoeuvrability of hostile starships now scales correctly with the space combat difficulty setting.

• Fixed an issue that could allow players to interact with hidden inventory items while using the expanded inventory.

• Fixed a rare issue that could leave some Multi-Tools with unremovable broken technology after that technology was repaired.

• The non-functional companion summoning options have been removed from the starship Quick Menu.

• Fixed an issue that could cause the Stasis Device and the Fusion Ignitor crafting steps to spill beyond the edges of the screen.

• Fixed a collision issue affecting some Alloy door parts.

• Fixed an issue that caused the living frigate “Feed” options to appear when talking to standard frigate captains aboard your freighter.

• Fixed a number of visual glitches that could occur while using the Appearance Modifier.

• Fixed a number of rendering issues affecting Oculus/Meta VR headsets.

• The visual quality of FSR 2’s Ultra Performance mode has been increased.

• Fixed a number of particle flickering issues in VR.

• Fixed a rare hang that could occur when summoning the Space Anomaly using a hotkey.

• Fixed a crash related to playing custom ByteBeat tracks.