No Man’s Sky “Frontiers” Update

It has been a full five years since No Man’s Sky came out. August 9th marked the date. Thinking back to my original experience with the game… I didn’t straight away dislike it. The sense of wonder from exploring a giant universe and being the first to step foot on the planet I found myself awakening on carried it for a while. Naming rocks, flora and fauna — in the hopes that perhaps one day, someone else might find them — was neat.

It didn’t carry the game for long though.

And people were angry.

Since then, Hello Games has been on a steady path to improvement. The Internet Historian put together a video essay on the subject early last year. After which we’ve had several more big, chunky updates. The fifth-year anniversary is a big milestone and one many expected to see accompanied by something large. On the order of Next, Beyond or Origins.

Frontiers: Anniversary Trailer + Teaser

While a great overview of what has been before… It really is a teaser in the barest sense of the word for Frontiers.

So, in the absence of information… Let’s speculate! :D

What I think could be included in Frontiers

It’s going to be fun to see just how far off base these are, or whether I get any right at all.

• Player Built Stations/Structures in Space
  Although I’m not sure about the plausability of this one. No Man’s Sky is very much not into PvP. Although on the other hand, with so much space available… It could potentially still work without conflict. And we do have ground based land grabs already in the game!
  • Orrrr… Perhaps better community building tools to facilitate entire cities.
    Could also fit with the theme of ‘Frontiers’, I think!
    
• Some form of warp space, or space existing outside the galaxy map
  In which, I hope, we learn more about those hostile aliens found on certain planets and the abandoned freighters. But perhaps there will be a different threat coming from this space?
  
• Enhancing the depth of the economy and trading simulation
  I hope for this one in essentially every update where it might even remotely fit the name. I could see it perhaps being applicable here!
  
• Further increasing biome diversity within individual planets
  Perhaps the range of biomes will increase as you head into the later galaxies, too. Provide more reason to explore these (essentially) New Game+ spaces.
  
• Revamped Mining Mechanics — both on the ground and in space
  I’m going to suggest this is the least likely one on my list. But man would I love to see something more like Elite: Dangerous for belt mining than… whatever it is we have currently. Just rocks everywhere between planets, doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not. I don’t expect we’d get all the way to E:D levels in one go, but just any improvement would be appreciated!

I think those are the main ones I have in mind. There are dozens of other things running through my mind, and I have no doubt there are hundreds more that Hello Games has on their backlog I’ve not thought of at all.

Whatever it ends up entailing, I’m excited. It’s been a few updates since I gave No Man’s Sky a lot of time, so if we also get a new Expedition with this release (which I think likely) then it sounds like the perfect time to jump back in.

This was posted during Blaugust 2021, the annual blogging event hosted by Belghast. Blaugust is an event aiming to welcome new blogger blood into the fold and revitalise those who’ve been at it a little longer.

The Blaugust Discord is still available to join in, year-round!