Space jockeys and planetary pioneers alike are rejoicing with this week’s release of Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky for Xbox One. No Man’s Sky is a sci-fi adventure set in an absolutely massive universe, in which every star is orbited by planets filled with life, each of which you can visit if you’d like. Every player’s experience is unique thanks to the game’s procedural generation, ensuring you’ll discover lifeforms and environments that no other player has seen before. Thanks to a number of big additions to the base game, the release of No Man’s Sky on Xbox One brings with it some great features and opportunities to get excited about.

The NEXT Update is the Best Update

In addition to the core No Man’s Sky experience, Xbox One owners get the benefit of the game launching alongside its highly-anticipated NEXT update. The NEXT update brings a bevy of changes to the game, including (but not limited to) greatly improved graphics and textures, a new third-person perspective available both on-foot and in spaceships, an overhauled base building system that will let you build multiple bases on any planet, and the ability to command a fleet of freighters, which you can send out on exploratory missions.

Everything’s Better with Friends

The biggest change to the game with the NEXT update is the new multiplayer feature, which allows you to play with up to three of your friends in the same universe. There’s plenty to do with your space chums, including racing exocraft across the surface of newfound planets, cooperatively engaging in space battles against other players, and dividing labor when constructing colonies of bases. There are even standalone multiplayer missions that can be completed together. Of course, there’s a bit of a double-edged laser sword to all of this: you might run into a group of people working together to loot and pillage your base or take out your ship. Finally, you should note that friendly fire is on by default, so your multi-tool’s laser will damage your pals if they accidentally get in your line of fire (or deserve to be double-crossed).

Mix It Up with Mixplay

Not only can you now play No Man’s Sky with friends thanks to its new multiplayer mode, you can also have some fun by letting your friends and/or total strangers get in on the action by streaming on Mixer. No Man’s Sky Mixplay feature allows anyone watching your stream to spend their hard-earned Spark on everything from launch fuel to A-Class Tech, making it a bit easier to progress and explore more of your universe faster. Of course, if they’re feeling less-than-charitable, they could also spend their Spark on warping in enemy Sentinels or pirates to ratchet up the tension and make it more likely that’ll you be just another corpse floating through the void.

No Man's Sky Inline image 2

No Man's Sky Inline image 2

The Deep Beauty of Deep Space

No Man’s Sky is a beautiful game, featuring nearly infinite colorful worlds and creatures. It’s even more gorgeous on Xbox One X, running at 4K Ultra HD if you’ve got a monitor or television that supports it. Best of all, you can play it the way you want it. No Man’s Sky on Xbox One X feature two different modes that you can toggle between in the game options menu:  a “High Performance” mode which runs at 1440p and 60 frames per second, and a “High Quality” option which achieves a native 4K resolution (or 2160p). When combined with the new and improved flora, fauna, and environments, these visual options make this a true stunner.

Play it Your Way

One of the best features of No Man’s Sky is the fact that, once you’re through the initial mission tasking you with repairing your ship and multi-tool, you can largely play the game in whatever manner you’d like. If you want to spend the majority of your time in space, go right ahead. Feel like bouncing from planet to planet without mucking around with bases? Go nuts. In addition to customize your play style, the NEXT update also added a brand-new character customization feature that offers a huge range of options. Not only can you choose between each of the game’s five races, you can also tweak everything from your gloves and armor to your torso and head.

We’ve only begun scratching the surface of No Man’s Sky for Xbox One, but it’s clear that this is the definitive version of an already deep game. We can’t wait to find out what the team at Hello Games will bring us next.

See the rest of the story on Xbox Wire

Related:
No Man’s Sky Available Now on Xbox One
Next Week on Xbox: New Games for July 24 – 26
See Multiplayer in Action in New No Man’s Sky Trailer

Source: Xbox Blog