Another busy year for No Man’s Sky is drawing to a close, and this holiday season we are pleased to revisit our tradition of running remixed editions of this year’s expeditions.
Across the following dates, 2023’s community expeditions will be available once more, taking place in new sections of the universe, offering explorers another opportunity to experience these stories and events and earn exclusive rewards.
In addition to the 2023 expeditions, we are also bringing back a limited run of the community favourite Cartographers, from 2021. The bundle of rewards includes some of the most popular items from across a number of past expeditions, including the coveted Golden Vector starship – an exciting opportunity for players who missed out on the chance to earn these rewards during the original expedition runs.
Utopia: 8th Dec – 15th Dec
Work together with other Travellers to rebuild an abandoned solar system for the mysterious Utopia Foundation. Utopia welcomes all contributors to our ambitious new communal habitation project!
Singularity: 15th Dec – 22nd Dec
Begin to unveil the history and origin of the harmonic camps in this precursor to Echoes. A mystery that touches upon artificial intelligence, the will to exist, and the very nature of what it means to be alive.
Cartographers: 22nd Dec – 29th Dec
Awaken stranded on the fiery planet of Coul Major, and deeply explore its surface as you work to repair your bespoke starship.
Voyagers: 29th Dec – 8th Jan
A relaxing journey of exploration, encouraging Travellers to seek out remarkable worlds, reach planetary summits and oceanbeds, and catalogue your findings.
Rewards for the 2023 expeditions include the Robo-Warden and HoverDroid Companions, the Fearsome Visor and Wayfarer’s Helm, the Crimson Freighter Trail, and much more.
Cartographers presents some of the most exciting and popular rewards from previous expeditions: the Jetpack Bubble Trail, Feasting Casque, Exotic Wingpack, Streamlined Jetpack, and the legendary Golden Vector starship.
Left-Handed VR
Today’s expedition update includes a bonus feature that we have been wanting to implement for a long time: left-handed mode for motion controls in virtual reality. VR players may now toggle their preferred handedness between left and right.
The handedness setting in VR links your grip on the Multi-Tool, interactions with menus, selection and placement of base building objects to the dominant hand, while attaching the wrist menu to the secondary hand, allowing left-handed players a more comfortable and intuitive experience.
This year we celebrated 7 years of post-launch development and support for No Man’s Sky and 10 years almost to the day since we announced the game to the world at the Game Awards (VGX). It is overwhelming to look back at how much the game has grown since 2016 – and to look ahead to where it is going. We’re excited to share a little taste of what’s yet to come!
[previewyoutube=HPgdHZn3hs0;full][/previewyoutube]
Nintendo Switch Visual Quality
Another feature in today’s update that we wanted to highlight: the rendering clarity on Switch has enjoyed further improvements. When we added FSR 2 on Switch in ECHOES, we were so happy to see the positive response from players and press (“With the recent patches, No Man’s Sky is now one of the cleanest, most visually stable games on Nintendo’s hardware.” – Eurogamer), and we’re pleased to be able to expand on that.
In particular, with today’s update, Switch players will experience a reduction of ghosting artifacts – visual noise that can linger on screen when the image moves – and an overall improvement to image sharpness, via a highly bespoke implementation of AMD FidelityFX’s Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS), customised to perform optimally on Switch.
Community Research
The Quicksilver Synthesis Companion has working continuously throughout the year, powered by Travellers completing missions available at The Nexus. Their current synthesis project is a trio of cargo-themed base parts: an industrial crane as well as covered crates and silos, whose contents may well be of Outlaw provenance…
Global community progress towards unlocking these exclusive decorations can be viewed in the Mission Log, at the Quicksilver Bot’s kiosk, or at the Galactic Atlas site.
Featured Bases
Iteration: Mercury, custodian of the Space Anomaly’s teleporter, has established links to a new set of Featured Bases. Visit them to tour the cosy Polestar Potions & Apothecary and Wizards Rest, the tranquil Butterfly House and Ealpha Base, or the magnificent Last Egg from the First Dragon-UD22 – CCAS.
Polestar Potions & Apothecary by Nerozii-
Development Update
The team are already hard at work creating new content and features for No Man’s Sky in 2024 – we are dreaming up some exciting new things that we can’t wait to share!
Update 4.46 is available across all platforms today, which includes the 2023 expedition remixes, left-handed VR mode, and a number of stability and gameplay fixes. Full patch notes are available here.
Our journey continues.
Sean
