Partially leaked before its official announcement, Hello Games has added the first semblances of multiplayer to their procedurally generated space explorer in their latest patch.
The announced, dubbed “Atlas Rises”, marks the first anniversary of the indie game and is a stepping stone to adding full multiplayer into No Man’s Sky. As described by Hello Games, the patch will allow up to 16 players to jointly explore planets with voice chat, although the players will only be visualised by “strange floating orbs” and interaction between players will be very limited:
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.
Another major inclusion for the patch is the fleshing out of the game’s story mode. “Our story brings a new context, quest system and branching narrative to No Man’s Sky,” Hello Games wrote, saying that the content capped out at around 30 hours, double the amount of lore and interactions in the original game.
The update also introduces an improved analysis visor, a new mission system with procedurally generated quests along with NPC guilds and standing amongst factions, crashed freighters on some planetary surfaces, and more fleshed out galaxies:
The full list of improvements can be read on the official page here.
Comments
47 responses to “No Man’s Sky Patch Adds Partial Multiplayer, 30 Hours Of Story”
HA!
HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAhahaahahaAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA
You are kidding right? So it is basically where Skyrim Oblivion multiplayer mods were years ago? This game is a joke.
Is it really that funny? That said I wish they didn’t bother with MP – if only to piss off a few more irrationally angry people.
Still I’ll give them credit where it’s due – one year post release they’re still actively working on it and trying to improve it, when they could have easily turned around and said “Fuck it, we’re done.”
Exactly. The stupid shitstorm surrounding this game (mostly from entitled people) was and is totally over the top.
The developers are clearly trying to add content, when they could have done nothing.
Adding content after release doesn’t change the fact they released a hollow shell of a game for a $60 price tag pretending it was god’s gift to gaming. Most people aren’t so quick to forgive being screwed over like that.
Yes, We are so entitled for wanting the developer to stick to his promisers. So entitled because we paid Full prices for a game that was worth $20.
I can think of loads of games which had features which were nixxed in the final product. This isn’t uncommon. The problem here is a certain element of people latched onto some hate train for this particular product.
Also no one forced anyone to buy no mans sky. The reviews stated what features were present in the finished build.
Those loads of other games did not go on huge press tours and late night chat shows promising feature after feature that was never delivered on. Don’t make up bullcrap. You are grasping at straws in a vain attempt to defend the game.
You say never but here we are a year later and they are still working to deliver them. I never bought into the hype and just assumed this would be a game I could sit on the couch and discover space giraffe so I’m happy with the improvements.
As am I and I am actually considering rebuying it with these updates. But it’s still not worth the current retail price.
I forgot that some people act like a small vocal minority was the blame for everything, they spent a lot of time attacking people who had genuine complaints, calling them entitled and trying to shame them out of refunds.
Disgusting behaviour.
They’re trying to get it close to something Sean Murray promised countless times in promotional material. Calling out “salty” gamers is too easy in this case. It was way more than that and Hello Games deserved the shit the copped.
absolutely. they overpromised and underdelivered.
give it another year and this game could be decent (and 20 dollars ha)
Well its $24.99 USD so close haha
I already bought it for $20 (well, $22 – close enough) and it’s already decent. I’ve certainly got no complaints about it for the price I paid.
oh do tell where you got it from, I just checked GMG and it’s not even close to
Steam…?
nuhh given our poor exchange 23USD is closer to 30 AUD =p
PSN sale a few months back.
gog.com has it for just under $25 AUD at the moment…
Seems like it could have done with another year or so in the oven after all – a lot of what was allegedly promised is starting to filter down.
Really don’t know why they bothered with MP though, I’d rather they make it a better SP game. Sick of everything having MP just for the sake of it or to make up for limited gameplay.
Is it fair to call this a indie title though?.
It was made by like 10 people and i don’t think it exactly had a very big budget. only thing not indie about it was they charged full game price, so depends how you define indie
Are they an independent developer y/n
Yeah good point, but i mean there are some other massive game companies that are independent (CD Projekt Red for example), do they count as indie? seriously i dont know, do they? i feel like the general opinion on what indy is is some combination of all these above things.
They’re independent so yes 😛
If you want to know whether they count as big or little, you need to look at how big or little they are.
Yes but you know as well as i thats not the only thing that would make people consider a game ‘indie’. in fact i bet if you asked most people they wouldn’t call The witcher indie. Doesn’t mean they are right (or wrong) i just think that what an indie game is has gone from just being made by an independent developer to some combo of all the things said above (in general opinion).
The person who downvoted you for asking an honest question is a dick, so I’m upvoting you to counter it.
Update’s live now ^__^
They need to make the planets more interesting. I lost interest in the 50th rocky slightly mountainous, jaggy landscape with similar looking plants and horrible looking water. I wanted genuine jungles, mountain ranges, beaches, real deserts. Not just endless rocky hill after rocky hill after rocky hill.
the only thing that could get me back at this point would be a change to the way planets are generated to make them more varied and interesting
Not “one is orange and one makes your meter go down faster”
this is pretty much the definition of too little too late
What kind of despicable person is an apologist for endless lies and charging $60 for a clearly misrepresented unfinished game of NMS, and then blaming victims for being whingers. Disgusting.
Personally, I enjoyed the game upon release & I like the updates they’ve done.
I never brought into the hype train for it, so had no expectations for it. But am also highly aware of how backers & other people wanted the game rushed out, so various things were never added.
In the end, the impatient people with too high expectations are to blame for it & they continue to lash out over it.
I enjoyed it too, but I can understand the disappointment many felt. I love the look of it, and some of those planets had a really eerie feeling to them. But clearly some bits were profoundly broken.
Ive enjoyed the updates as they’ve filtered through – perhaps there’s some guilt behind it for overpromising so much in the first place. Looking toward to this latest instalment. Intriguingly it seems to hint at more to come.
But then I enjoyed FF XIII so I’m not a credible judge!
I enjoyed FFXIII too, so shall post this to celebrate our connection: http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/4f/4f82556195299913c504f8c14f013133eab23cece4c485b0f4b6a2c80c4b4614.jpg
I’d imagine I’m still the only one who enjoyed aliens colonial marines, though?
You’re a freak in that regard & should seek professional help, sorry.
It’s for your own good.
Backers and fans are never ‘to blame’ for a game releasing early, that’s nonsense. You don’t go through the entire development lifecycle of a game only to believe it’s imperative to release prematurely because a few people on the internet demanded it.
The responsibility for when a game is released is down to the publisher and the developer. Hello Games self-published, so the mess the game was in at release was their responsibility, no one else’s.
No, but having a lot of pressure from Sony certainly would.
I have no doubt that Sony put an immense pressure on them to release. Look at the marketing they did.
I don’t condone what HG did, but as an indie, I can also appreciate the pressures they would have been under. I’m just happy they’re trying to make the game would it should have been to begin with.
I agree that Sony likely had a strong effect on them, I think I remember saying something to that effect at the time when the game released and everyone realised how shallow it was. I understand that kind of pressure, I’ve been in similar circumstances myself.
But the way I see it is this: designing and directing the development of a game is a large, complex task that requires deep understanding of the software development lifecycle and solid leadership skills to be able to direct and drive the team along the plan and towards the goal. It seems strange to me that Sean Murray would have the strength of leadership to be able to lead the development team, but not have the strength of leadership to tell Sony that it needs another 6 months of development. With the way it turned out, even Sony wasn’t happy with what resulted and tried to distance themselves from HG, so caving to their pressure just hurt both sides.
Exactly. However we don’t know the circumstances of the agreements that HG had with Sony. Maybe Sony agreed to fund the game for X period, and so the money was running out and they couldn’t fund anymore of the development.
As far as I know, Sony didn’t fund the game’s development at all. Their money went entirely into marketing and ‘publishing assistance’.
That’s what I thought. I’m just trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Some interesting discussion in here.
Interesting.. Since this patch was released the recent reviews have jumped to “mostly positive” on Steam
75% positive recently which I think is the last month. Be interesting to see what that ratio goes to once it is only post patch votes being counted.
Still sitting on 33% (Mostly Negative) overall though