The new expansion for No Man’s Sky, Atlas Rises, is on its way to players soon. The newest update to the controversial title finally adds things that players were seething about missing from launch. Players can expect 30 hours of “new story content”, which includes the appearance of a new “mysterious interdimensional alien race” , alongside “limited” online co-op. The latter (or lack thereof) created a stir at launch, so it’ll be interesting to see what the final update brings to the table, as well as the player reaction to it.
No Man’s Sky has experienced a steep decline in it’s playerbase. Judging by SteamCharts, only a few hundred people play the game everyday now, down from a peak CCU count of over 200,000 on Steam. Even a year ago, up to 10,000 people were playing the game on Steam. This doesn’t include console data, but I can’t imagine the numbers being much better even including other platforms. All in all, lets hope Atlas Rises and future updates can reignite some of the spark that drove players to No Man’s Sky in the first place.
Other features being touted are the additions of wealth, economy and conflict levels to star systems, an overhauled Galaxy map, the ability to install “Galactic technology” to filter the map by lifeform, wealth and economy, and an improved waypoint system. Players will also discover crashed freighters, be able to use the terrain manipulator to discover resources and complete salvage missions for Guild rewards.
Hello Games is also upping the visual quality of planetary biomes and there are new plant types to discover. High resolution textures have also been added to make the game look a lot better.
But not content with just those teases, a full trailer has been released for Atlas Rises:
“Glitches in the simulation have begun to appear. Visualised by strange floating orbs, up to 16 players can see and communicate with one another, and explore the universe together. While interaction with others is currently very limited, this is an important first step into the world of synchronous co-op in No Man’s Sky.
“While interaction is very limited, VOIP (Voice over IP) allows proximity based voice chat with other nearby explorers. Use portals to quickly travel to more populated planets, or to meet up with friends.”
Atlas Rises also promises to improve mapping and waypointing, as well as an overhaul to the game’s trading system. The update also targets an expected amount of quality of life, texture and visual improvements, while terrain editing looks particularly interesting:
