No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games announced today that the space exploration title will get its biggest update ever so far. Further, the developer revealed that the updated title would also debut on the Xbox One.
The new update called “Next” is scheduled to launch in August of this year on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. As of now, the developer has not shared any details on what No Man’s Sky Next will actually offer. However, Hello Games’ co-founder Sean Murray did note that the Next update is based on player feedback, and it will expand the story themes that were introduced with the previous updates.
Coming in Summer 2018 is No Man’s Sky NEXT, a free update for PS4, PC, Xbox and WeGame. It’s our largest update so far, and we’re working our socks off pic.twitter.com/wZhjaLMbsT
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) March 29, 2018
Further, the new banner of the game includes a logo for the mysterious WARE platform. Many believe that the title could have some link to an Alternate Reality Game, which has a connection with Ware-tech.cloud (remember ARG’s Waking Titan Phase 4).
With the Next update, the developer will be hoping to lure in as many gamers as possible. No Man’s Sky was launched in 2016, but it failed to live up to expectations. The game is based on the concept of a free-roaming science fiction universe and makes use of smart technology to mathematically generate new worlds for the players to explore.
In an email to Polygon, Murray noted that the update is named as such because it is an “important next step on a longer journey for us and the community.” Further, the executive noted that the team had been working “our socks off on this” and this is their biggest update so far. The update will be free, Murray said, adding “we’ll continue to support No Man’s Sky in this way for the foreseeable future.”
Since its release in 2016, the game has received three major updates – Foundation, Pathfinder, and Atlas Rises. According to Murray, the players welcomed each update as each new update was “more successful than the last.” The last update, Atlas Rises, came last summer. The update added 30 hours of story along with more planetary variety.
Talking of the Atlas Rises update in an email to GamesBeat, Murray said it was “a real inflection point in the legacy of No Man’s Sky.” The success of the update encouraged the team to “go further and faster.”
Speaking of the Xbox One debut, the executive said that Xbox fans have always been requesting it. 505 Games will offer the physical version of the game. The Xbox version will include all the previous updates and will be enhanced for the Xbox One X with HDR and 4K support. No Man’s Sky has been a PS4 exclusive since its launch in 2016.
Along with Xbox One, No Man’s Sky is also coming to Tencent’s Chinese platform – WeGame. Murray informed that China is their second biggest market since the release of Atlas Rises, so they are excited to “be able to support that further.”
In its two-year journey so far, the game has seen a few ups and downs. The game was hyped massively by Hello Games and Sony prior to its initial release. However, after the launch, many complained that the game failed to meet the expectations. Since then, the developer has been able to win gamers with the updates.
“We’ve learned a lot over the last few years, faster than we would have liked! I’d love to avoid talking completely and just make things people can play, but we knew this was going to leak anyway, and I think it’s news that should make a lot of folks happy,” Murray said.
In separate news, Microsoft has announced the much-awaited Games with Gold for April. The April line-up appears to be the best so far this year.
The first free game for the Xbox One will be The Witness. The game will be available for a full month, i.e., April 1 to April 30. The second free game will be Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, and it will be available April 16 to May 15. Cars 2: The Video Game is the third free game. It will be available from April 1 to April 15 on Xbox One and Xbox 360. The last free game is Dead Space 2, which will be available April 16 to April 30 on Xbox One and Xbox 360.
If you download all four games, you effectively save over $129, and also add up to 4000 points to your gamerscore.
