Polygon’s Tara Long put more than 250 hours into No Man’s Sky before the Next update launched this Tuesday. Here, she breaks down what it is in the new game that really caught her attention. And it’s much more than just the new third-person perspective or multiplayer features.
Some might differ on the changes — refining resources, for example, adds another layer to crafting and resource management in the gameplay that some might find more time consuming than worthwhile. The new guide feature, for example, catalogs all of the items you can acquire in No Man’s Sky and is a huge assist for a game with such a big crafting component.
Some things are less cool. Scanning and mining still take forever, and there are still glitches and performance issues that strain your hardware (particularly if it’s an original PlayStation 4). But there are now planets with rings. We can all agree that’s cool. And the positives, on the whole, outweigh the negatives.
No Man’s Sky Next is a free update and the game is available on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and, now, Xbox One. We think the game has turned a corner and is living up to the tremendous promise it showed when it was first revealed five years ago.
