No Man’s Sky players find discoveries wiped when returning to old planets (update)

The No Man's Sky community is currently swapping stories about what could be another of the game’s issues: animals, plants and other discoveries no longer appearing logged in the journal after revisiting planets. Several players report that their starting planets and other charted territories aren’t saving their finds, although the reason why is unclear and in dispute.

A Reddit thread by user Dark_Nexis kicked off the complaints. In a post, the player wrote of managing to make it all the way back to their first planet, only to find that everything other than the system and planet names was gone.

"I check a few neighboring stars I discovered and their [discoveries] were wiped," Dark_Nexis wrote. "So none of my named animals [or] plants were ever saved."

Others chimed in about similar issues. A user known as Ultasilvanus wrote that they returned to a planet that appeared to be in the process of corrupting saved data, with only a handful of waypoints logged and just three animal species detailed, even though the explorer said they’d found many more on their last visit.

Still, "I memorized the planet, and went on playing and discovering new stuff," Ultrasilvanus continued. "The next day, browsed the list again. The planet was wiped clean and so were a couple more."

It’s possible that the game’s server connection could play a part in this; players can upload their discoveries if the game’s online service permits, and it can sometimes be finnicky. It’s also possible that discoveries cycle out, just as the list of found waypoints does. (Only six waypoints show in an explorer’s journal at a given time.) Members of Polygon staff also confirmed that their oldest animal discoveries are still viewable in the journal, but it’s unclear whether this changes only upon returning to the planet where they were found.

We've reached out to developer Hello Games about the issues and will update accordingly. Whatever the cause, No Man’s Sky has proven to be an oft-perplexing title for many. The development team behind the procedurally generated adventure game has gone mostly quiet since the game launched, addressing issues on occasion, like when there are upcoming patches. There’s a support page that charts reported glitches, however, and the studio recently hired on more members for its quality assurance team.

We’ve made an effort to understand No Man’s Sky and share our learnings with you. Our guide contains much of this knowledge and tips to better understand the game yourself.

Update: It turns out that the missing discoveries were due to a server error, Dark_Nexus reported after posting the initial thread. The post has since been removed, but a notice alerting players and Redditors that discoveries are not actually disappearing has surfaced in its stead.