No Man’s Sky: Atlas Rises is a huge update

We have written about Atlas Rises before, but finally we have a total list of things that are a part of this new No Man’s Sky update, and it is totally fine to feel overwhelmed. Hello Games have managed to dwarf the last, excellent Pathfinder update with the sheer amount of improvements.

The multiplayer is finally here! Well, perhaps not a fully implemented idea of multiplayer, but you can meet other players exploring the same planets and even voice chat with them using the game’s proximity chat. You can go exploring together and this is the first step towards introducing a real synchronous co-op in No Man’s Sky.

The rest of the changes is so huge that nothing but a long list will do it justice. Here we go!

Generation

• Increased variety in weather, planet and structure names
• More base building parts have unique names
• Prevented trees spawning on sheer cliffs
• Improved object placement on slopes
• Improved grass placement and density
• Changed the default starting ship model
• Regenerated galaxy to remove differences between survival, normal and creative game modes
• Improved building distribution
• Increased distribution of heridium deposits
• Improved generation of beaches along shorelines
• Repositioned player bases to accommodate generation changes

Exploration

• Improved balance of hazards between planets
• Improved settings for hazard damage and strength
• Reduce cave hazard recharge times
• Added Shielding Shard to the starting player inventory
• Limited the depth at which buildings can spawn underwater

Gameplay

• More tech available in tech shops
• Balanced tech shop standing requirements
• Standing lights have a proper name when you interact with them
• Increased robustness of systems for locating buildings
• Increased number and types of objects which can be scanned
• Increased information available about scanned foliage and creatures
• Improved planet resource lists
• Craftable products now sorted by most recent use
• Improved differentiation of weapons
• Fixed pinning product recipes and technology guides
• Continued story unlocked through abandoned buildings
• Added interactions and dialogue options for many structures and characters
• Overhauled secondary character interactions
• Joint exploration has been introduced allowing 16 players to see visual representations of each other in game. Joint exploration does not require PS Plus, and is not currently available on GOG Galaxy.

Trade and farming

• Alloys, farm products and new gas products now form separate branches of a larger craft tree
• Added new valuable higher tier craft products
• Added new harvester to harvest atmospheric gases
• Added new trade specific products
• Added new farmable “Star Bramble” plant
• Added larger 4 plant hydroponic tray
• Increased contrast between picked and unpicked resource plants to more easily tell them apart
• Balanced priced of alloys, farm products and gases
• Improved distributions of resources on planets
• Improved scan ranges for resources on planets
• Added scan markers on more smaller plutonium crystals to aid resource gathering

Freighters

• Balanced freighter prices
• Fixed collision on freighter bridge
• Added freighter classes
• Added ability to warp in your freighter
• Fixed floating turrets on capital freighters

Space

• Improved space heavy air
• Added requirement to scan planets in order to reveal their names
• Improved planet name display as you enter orbit
• Fix for massive carve radius when mining asteroids

Galactic Map

• Updated galactic map UI
• Improved galactic map controls
• Improved star names gathered in galaxy map flythrough
• Improved distribution of different coloured stars
• Added interstellar scan events

Starships

• Added ability to summon your ship from the quick menu
• Refined ship reticules
• Added new holographic cockpit HUD elements: mini map, pulse drive warning and target ship
• Added new ship technology
• Balanced space combat
• Balanced ship weapons and technology
• Updated ship weapon projectile effects
• Updated ship hit direction markers
• Improved flare graphics on ships
• Improved loot containers dropped by AI ships
• Improved effects on damaged AI ships
• Balanced crashed ships broken slots and repair costs
• Added a more convenient swap inventory button for moving items between new/crashed ships and storage units
• Updated design of Atlas pass icons
• Added ability to look around the cockpit when landed
• Allowed player to remain in ship cockpit after landing
• Improved spawning and distribution of AI ships
• Improved ship altimeter
• Added in-ship communicator
• Added button prompt for ship zoom
• Fixed a bug where your ship could become invisible by visiting the galactic map
• Improved Pirate systems including the ability to negotiate or call in support
• Added low flight mode
• Improved landing code

UI

• Divided options menu into several pages
• Revised Journey page
• New Gek, Korvax and Vy’keen medals
• New medals for the merchant, mercenary and explorer guilds
• Revised log page
• Fixed animation on markers as they are removed
• Improved binocular UI
• Updated journey milestone icons
• Overhauled discovery log
• Added cardinal directions to compass
• Added distance markers to compass
• Fix for “redeem content” showing twice on Steam menu
• New trade and product icons
• Revised combat ship markers
• Improved ship tracking arrows when flying away from targets
• Overhauled conversation interface

Graphics

• Improved HBAO filtering around edges
• Improved TAA handling of grass blade edges
• Introduced depth of field effect during interactions
• Added LOD meshes and imposters to various props
• Fixed texturing on the buildable door
• Reduced HBAO shimmer
• Reduced shadow acne
• Fixed artifacts with imposter shadows
• Improved double-sided normals for foliage
• Improved terrain texturing and texture blending
• Improved grass colour blending and integration with terrain
• Improved grass and leaf materials
• Improved colour palettes across several biomes
• Improved planet night skies
• Fixed z-fighting on small glowing plants
• Various graphics optimisations and fixes
• Visual improvements to Atlas stations
• Replaced all terrain textures with higher detail and quality variants
• Added new higher detail foliage variants to several biomes
• Upgraded textures on several cave props

Audio

• Four new sets of soundscapes by 65 Days of Static
• Reworked space combat audio
• Reworked space explosions
• Added new ship weapon sounds
• Added weird biome soundscape
• Added new music and sound effects for story mode
• Lots of new UI sounds
• Minor mix changes and optimisations

If you’ve read this far, wouldn’t it have been simpler to actually play the game?