No Man's Sky has been appearing on more and more people's radars and wish lists in the months leading up to its release, and for good reason. Hello Games has tried to do what many could not: create a simple and intuitive space exploration MMO. Many have tried but have only proven how difficult it can be to create a game where flying through space requires complicated flight controls and steep learning curves. No Man's Sky prides itself on the sheer amount of content in the game: more than 18 quintillion planets to explore, with incentives coming from the Atlas, a universal database intended for explorers to consult with and sell their own information and findings to. Along the way, each planet has its own ecosystem, environment, and species inhabiting it.
These are just a few of the reasons why many have been anticipating the release of No Man's Sky, which was little over 12 hours for PlayStation 4 owners. It released at midnight EDT and will likely follow suit for PC gamers.
One might think that, with all this content, Hello Games would ship the game as is, but they would be dead wrong according to a developer post on the No Man's Sky website. It's astounding that the developers were able to add so much and improve on so many features since the game "finished" its development stage.
Some additions include a changed generation algorithm, designed to force more diversity between planets and even larger bodies in space; this change also makes galaxies up to 10x larger. Creatures are now even more interactive than before as they now have diets and more functions as pets. Trading has been improved on, as has terrain generation and graphical effects on every planet. The scope of this update is massive and it would be best to read the full change log, courtesy of No-Mans-Sky.com:
No Man's Sky released on August 9 for PlayStation 4 owners and will be releasing on August 12 on Steam and for Windows. It is available for $60.