No Man's Sky's day-one patch, available now, dramatically changes the entire game (update)

The day-one patch for No Man's Sky is less of an update and more of a comprehensive overhaul, according to the lengthy notes Hello Games founder Sean Murray published yesterday.

Update (Aug. 8): This patch is now live on PlayStation 4. It is 824 MB.

Ship and personal inventories are being expanded (by multiples of 5 and 2.5, respectively), planets have a wider diversity of creatures, and those creatures now have a diet, where proper feeding enables their assistance. The universe generation algorithm has been changed, (meaning planets will move) with the goal of bringing more variety to the galaxies, which also are "up to 10x larger" post-patch.

That is not all, by a long shot. The patch brings in three unique story paths, one of which was completely rewritten. A greater variety of ships will be found (and available for purchase) in each star system and the game's graphical effects get a polishing.

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No Man's Sky isn't 30 hours long, silly

The entire notes are here but in sum they describe a game that is functionally not at all what some people or press are playing right now.

One person paid $1,300 for a copy of the game nearly two weeks before its launch date (which is Aug. 9) and began streaming his playthrough and offering detailed thoughts on how the game plays. Publications such as Polygon and Kotaku also acquired the game early from retailers and also posted streams.

Some fans eager to see the game, first announced three years ago, have responded with disappointment, particularly when one user reached the center of his galaxy — ostensibly the overarching goal of the game — in a playthrough of about 30 hours.

Sony on Friday issued a statement noting that it had been holding back review copies of the game because the patch, which goes live on Monday, would significantly alter the game some now have in their hands. No Man's Sky's servers will be wiped sometime today and any user playing the game early will lose all of their save progress.

No Man's Sky launches Aug. 9 for PlayStation 4 and Aug. 12 on Windows PC.