No Man's Sky Is Getting A Complete Universal Refresh In One Of Its Biggest Updates Ever

As No Man’s Sky nears its eighth anniversary, it’s clear the open-world survival crafting sim isn’t slowing down. A cavalcade of free updates continues to transform the game from what it once was at launch, and the latest of those is no different. Today, Hello Games revealed Worlds Part 1, a complete overhaul of planetary weather that’s dropping alongside a major balancing patch and a new expedition that will see the community collectively fight against the threat of alien bugs. Anyone else ready for some No Man’s Helldivers?

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“When we started No Man’s Sky, we wanted people to feel like they had stepped into a science fiction book cover,” director Sean Murray wrote in an email announcing Worlds Part 1. “To bring us closer to that we’ve had to create a lot of new technology.” He said that technology will now make possible things in the game that “the community has almost given up hope on ever happening.”

Instead of a universal reset as some predicted, Hello Games is calling this a “universal refresh.” Here’s a summary of some of the major changes to how No Man’s Sky will generate planets and what players experience on them:

• New water technology for waves and reflections
• Waves are dynamic and will react to wind
• Ships can land on water
• New cloud tech for detailed skies with changing weather conditions
• Volumetrics and atmospherics on planet surfaces for rolling fog, rain, blizzards, lava sparks, and other phenomenon
• Weather systems that interact and develop in real time as players explore
• New biomes and more creatures to discover with more variety, all of which can become pets and mounts

Alongside this overhaul, No Man’s Sky will also be launching a new expedition that revolves around fighting alien bugs. Murray describes it as “Starship Troopers-inspired” and says players’ fight against these bugs across the new planets they explore will be “community driven” and come with a new heavy armor mech that has a flame thrower for an arm. It sounds like the unofficial Helldivers 2 crossover no one expected, and also a great idea for a new mech stratagem in Arrowhead’s hit shooter.

Murray had been teasing this update for several days, with fans speculating about all the different things that could still be added to No Man’s Sky this many years later. Some hoped for custom space stations, others guessed a complete universal reset, and a few wondered if Hello Games might finally be ready to share more information about it’s other upcoming project, the fantasy survival RPG Light No Fire. We didn’t end up getting a new trailer for that game, but it did come up in today’s update.

“Six months ago we announced Light No Fire,” Murray wrote. “It’s this insanely ambitious game. Over the last five years making game, we’ve learnt new things, and we’re feeding that back into No Man’s Sky. It feels like we’re bringing technology back from the future!” That’s effectively another way of saying that the new planetary features players can now experience in No Man’s Sky also act as a teaser, and potentially an early preview, of what they can expect from the look and feel of Light No Fire. The game doesn’t have a release date but here’s hoping we hear more about it at one of the gaming showcases coming later this year.

For now, here’s a full list of every change in the 5.0 patch notes:

SKY AND CLOUD RENDERING

• The atmospheric and volumetric cloud rendering system has been completely rewritten for vastly increased detail and definition.
• Planets now exhibit a greater range of cloud coverage: over time; from planet-to-planet; and in response to weather conditions.
• Planets with rain will no longer use the ambient rain effect when cloud coverage is insufficient.
• Daytime sky colours are now significantly more varied.
• Night-time ambient lighting is no longer always blue, and can vary according to the planet’s natural environment.
• Night-time darkness levels now vary as the night progresses.
• Night-time darkness now varies from planet-to-planet, with some being significantly darker than others.

WATER RENDERING

• Water rendering has been completely overhauled, and now uses a mesh-based system that allows for true wave and foam generation.
• Water conditions vary over time in response to both local weather and the depth of the water at any particular location, producing effects from stormy seas and huge ocean swells to tranquil still ponds.
• Water now reflects the sun and features ambient planetary reflections for dramatically increased visual quality.
• Water colour variety has been significantly increased.
• Base parts with glass now accurately render the water conditions outside.
• Sealed underwater base parts will no longer “leak” water into the base.
• Ships now leave splashes and trails in the water when flying low.
• Underwater jetpack effects have been significantly improved.
• Swimming effects have been significantly improved.
• Starships can now be fitted with aquatic landing jets, allowing them to land or be summoned just above the surface of the ocean.
• A biological equivalent of this technology has been added for living ships.

GENERAL ENGINE IMPROVEMENTS

• The shadow-rendering system has been reworked to take advantage of screenspace shadowing techniques, resulting in more richly lit planets and more accurate and more detailed shadows.
• The rendering of planetary objects such as trees, rocks, and grass has been rewritten and moved to a more modern GPU-based system, allowing for more objects at a better performance.
• Distant planetary objects now look significantly more detailed and realistic.
• Terrain generation has been rewritten to incorporate dual marching cubes voxel meshing, which reduces vertex count, increases terrain generation speed, improves framerate and saves significant amounts of memory.
• The component system has been reworked for increased speed and improved memory usage.
• Networking systems have been improved for reduced bandwidth usage.
• Significant memory and performance optimisations have been made across the entire game, particularly in metadata usage, texture streaming, LOD generation and procedural mesh generation.

DLSS3

• Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) is an NVIDIA technology, available to
• PC players with compatible RTX cards, which uses a deep learning neural network to boost frame rates and generate beautiful, sharp images.
• Support for the latest iteration, DLSS3, has been added to No Man’s Sky.
• DLSS3 multiplies performance by up to 4X compared to traditional rendering, while retaining great image quality. Learn more on the NVIDIA site.

PLANETARY VARIETY

• Planetary variety and diversity has been increased all across the universe.
• New frozen, lush, desert, scorched, radioactive and toxic worlds await discovery and exploration.
• Underlying terrain shapes have not been reset and existing planetary bases will not be moved.
• The chance of a world having ancient bones or salvageable scrap has been increased.
• Worlds with salvageable scrap occasionally feature additional rusted remnants to collect.

ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

• The wind simulation has been reworked to bring planets to life and provide a consistent effect across each world, moving trees and leaves, smoke effects, rain, fog, and snow all in a unified system.
• Fogging and particle systems have been improved for increased fidelity and better performance.
• All ambient planetary environment effects have been totally reworked.
• Storm effects have been completely overhauled.
• Planets can now have a range of additional atmospheric effects that match their ambient weather and hazard conditions.
• The visual effects for the jetpack have been overhauled.
• The visual effects for storm crystals have been reworked and improved.
• Footstep effect colouring has been improved.
• Fixed an issue that caused starship contrails to display a low speed.

CREATURES

• A new type of procedurally-generated arthropod-style creature has been added and may appear on any world.
• New types of procedurally-generated plant/animal hybrids have been added and may appear on any world.
• New types of procedurally-generated synthetic constructs can now be found on selected worlds…
• A new type of hostile creature has been added – the Brood Mother.
• Some worlds have become infested with the Vile Brood. On such worlds, players can now find juicy grubs. Structurally harming these grubs will summon the Brood
• Mother to project their young…
• A new multiplayer mission has been added to the Nexus to find and destroy the vile brood.
• Players who defeat brood mothers in combat may earn a variety of new titles and insectoid-themed helmet customisation options.
• Over 40 new cooking recipes have been added, making use of products harvested from new creatures.
• Biological horrors now drop cookable meat when killed.
• When under AI pilot control, the Minotaur will now target and exterminate biological horrors.
• The camera shake generated by the footsteps of colossal creatures has been reduced.
• The “boss battle” style UI used when fighting capital ships is now also used when fighting Sentinel Walkers and the Vessel of Many Mouths, giving extra details about their health and status.
• The Vessel of Many Mouths has been given additional ranged attacks, increasing the challenge of their encounter.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the acquisition of worm-cult story documents from the titan worm’s vile spawn.

LIQUIDATORS EXPEDITION

• Expedition Fourteen, Liquidators, will begin shortly and run for approximately six weeks.
• This expedition invites players to join the force of the Liquidator Vanguard as they seek to purge the universe of biological horrors old and new, including the infestations of the vile brood…
• Rewards include new posters; custom bug-hunting trophies; a unique arthropod-themed jetpack and full set of matching armour.
• All those who do their part and contribute to the community-wide efforts to exterminate the vile brood will earn pieces of the new Liquidator Heavy Exomech Hybrid, a set of heavy-duty armour for the Minotaur.
• Among the enhancements available to the Liquidator Mech is a bespoke flamethrower unit, perfect for heavy damage at close range.
• As the community makes progress in the expedition, the Liquidator Mech will become available at the Quicksilver Synthesis Companion for those unable to take part.

TWITCH CAMPAIGN

• A new package of Twitch drops will begin shortly. Sign up and link your platform accounts on the Twitch Drops page, then tune in to Twitch to earn exotic base parts, high-tech starships, fireworks, appearance modifications, and more.

SOLAR SHIP CUSTOMISATION

• The space station’s Starship Fabricator has been expanded to include the ability to craft Solar-class starships.

BASE PARTS

• A set of slanted skylight-style roof parts have been added for the timber, alloy, and stone construction sets.
• Fixed an issue that could cause base parts to pop in just after loading or warping.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed an issue that caused the Blaze Javelin to always aim at the floor when shooting at Sentinel Quads.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Quicksilver Synthesis Companion to chatter constantly whilst being interacted with.
• Fixed a rare issue that could cause player ships to fly extremely slowly while attempting to dock with the Space Anomaly.
• Fixed a number of visual issues with the origin point of the player torch that could cause the Multi-Tool or parts of the player to be lit up inappropriately.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the inventory page from correctly re-opening on your last selected inventory if that inventory was the freighter or any exocraft.
• Fixed a rare issue that could cause bad characters to be written into the user settings data, potentially leading to unexpected behaviour.
• Fixed an issue that caused the player to collide with harvested oxygen-rich plants.
• Fixed an issue that could cause volcanoes to block the ship or player start location when starting a new game on a volcanic world.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent NPCs from spawning on freighters.
• Fixed an issue that prevented New Beginnings entries from appearing in the Stories catalogue.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Gamma option to appear on PC or Mac while using an OS-level graphics configuration that prevented it from doing anything.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Assembled Construct aboard the Space Anomaly to produce an inappropriate prop while idling.
• Fixed a number of visual issues with Korvax helmets.
• Fixed a number of issues that could cause procedural textures to appear too light.
• Fixed a memory leak that could occur when changing resolution on PC.
• Fixed a memory trample related to wind generation.
• Fixed a number of rare memory tramples.
• Fixed a number of rare crashes related to reading player stats.
• Fixed a number of issues related to synching freighters in multiplayer.
• Fixed a memory trample related to texture generation.
• Fixed a number of issues related to reloading the current save.
• Fixed a large number of issues related to invalid numbers being used in physics calculations.
• Fixed an issue that could cause some specific space-only markers to appear when not in space.
• Fixed an issue that could cause discoveries made during an expedition to fail to transfer correctly to (or to overwrite) the discoveries list in the main save.
• Fixed a rare issue that could cause expeditions to begin with incorrect data, blocking progress.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent fleet frigates from being repaired when damaged.
• Fixed a number of collision issues aboard combat frigates.
• Fixed an issue in the base Armourer mission that could prevent progress if space combat is disabled.
• Fixed a large number of input bugs when using touch screen interfaces such as the SteamDeck or Switch.
• Fixed a large number of issues that prevented various controls from being correctly remapped.

UI AND QUALITY OF LIFE

• Previously named / uploaded discoveries can now be renamed and reuploaded.
• Fixed a large number of camera and animation issues when getting in or out of starship cockpits in first person.
• Several new gestures have been added to the Quick Menu, including an additional dance.
• The hazardous flora that litter some worlds have been tweaked for better visibility, better damage messaging, more consistent labelling, and more appropriate amounts of camera shake.
• The camera shake menu setting will now correctly reduce the shake from damage impacts.
• The active Multi-Tool mode can now be cycled while reloading (which will cancel any active reload in progress).
• Fixed an issue with the Target Sweep system that, when searching for planetary objects, would fail to detect many viable options and instead display “Signal too weak for distance estimate”.
• Space station and freighter docking has been reworked for a more pleasant docking experience, with less unnecessary rotation and smoother movement.
• Refiner slots can now be quick-filled with an entire stack, as an alternative to using the drag and drop system that allows fine control over the amount placed.
• When core chargeable technology (such as hazard protection) has been damaged, it is now added as a Quick Repair option to the Quick Menu.
• Maintenance and repair interactions have had their UI improved for visual polish and improved visibility.
• The interaction labels have been reworked for visual polish and responsiveness.
• The text and font usage on the starship’s targeting reticle has been improved.
• Input when using touch screen interfaces such as the SteamDeck or Switch has been refined across the board.
• Missions that suggest summoning the Space Anomaly from the quick menu will now always use the correct icon.
• Multiplayer missions will now use their correct icon for the hand-in stage at the Nexus.
• Improved the text colouring in detailed mission messages.
• The text chat message sent automatically when in need of resources now correctly reflects if this need is for repairing an item.
• Fixed a number of text clipping issues.

• Fixed an issue that prevented Cream Fingers from being edible.
• Fixed an issue that caused biscuit recipes (and a number of additional niche items) to be absent from the catalogue.