No Man's Sky Expeditions Update Introduces A New Way To Play, Cuts The Grind
No Man's Sky received a new update today that changes the game in several big ways. The first hint at what's new comes in the title of the update: Expeditions. Expeditions in No Man's Sky will serve as a new game mode that players can embark on together, starting from a fixed point and completing milestones on the way to finishing the expedition as a whole. There are also some big changes to resource collecting and usage that intend to cut down on the grind in the game, which is exciting news for No Man's Sky newcomers and veterans alike.
Hello Games says that expeditions will be split up into phases, which are themselves split up into milestones. Each milestone in a phase centers around some component of No Man's Sky – for instance, in the example image Hello Games shared today, some of the milestones listed include lifting off from the starting planet and discovering 20 different creatures. Each milestone you complete will give you a reward, while each phase you complete will grant a unique reward. Of course, you also get something for completing an entire expedition, but those rewards are being kept secret for now.
Aside from introducing expeditions, this update also changes how we'll complete missions. While mission objectives used to be identified by waypoints on your visor, now you'll need to sweep the environment to home in on the objective. The idea, it seems, is to make the process of finding mission objectives more exploratory in nature, rather than just directing players from waypoint to waypoint.
We're also getting visual enhancements to Explorer-class starships, rendezvous points that will appear along expedition routes, and sentinel combat enhancements. Hello Games has also changed the way we collect resources, reducing and rebalancing recipe costs and increasing resource deposit yields to cut back on the grind. Anyone who has made it more than few hours into No Man's Sky can attest that the game gets pretty grindy at points, so this change is definitely a big one. We're also getting cross-play discoveries and bases, so any discovery you make or base you upload will be seen by players on all platforms.
We've detailed many of the high points of today's update, but to learn about everything included in the Expeditions update, check out Hello Games' full patch notes. The update is live today on all platforms – PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC, Oculus, and PlayStation VR – so be sure to download it and take it for a spin.