It’s alive! Latest ‘No Man’s Sky’ update revives dead worlds

Have you ventured onto a new planet in No Man’s Sky and found it do be a little bit too dead? The game’s latest “Visions” content update aims to fix that by making these plants more vibrant and diverse and adding new creatures to discover, among other things.

Following the launch of the underwater-focused “The Abyss” update, Hello Games created Visions to give more variety to the game’s many planets — and more reason for players to explore them.

“Millions of previously dead planets have now burst into life, creating a weirder, more surprising universe to explore,” director Sean Murray said in a post on the PlayStation Blog.

The update includes new creatures, some of which sound like they were pulled out of a Pokémon game. These include predators who are disguised to look like minerals you’re interested in harvesting, so maybe shoot that rock with a weapon before you start trying to mine it. One creature shown in the latest trailer seems to grow spiky crystals on its surface as it closes in on a player, creating a wave-like appearance. To cheer yourself up after your brushes with death, you can launch fireworks into the sky.

If you’re more interested in finding hidden secrets or technology rather than live animals, you’ll also have plenty to do. Fallen satellites and freighters can be salvaged for parts, and ancient alien bones can even be uncovered. We’d love to see those bones then used for some sort of cloning experiment, but that will probably have to wait until another update.

No Man’s Sky continues to move away from the isolation-based game it started as in 2016, with multiplayer and Visions’ new global community events. In these events, players work together to complete research missions. With Visions, you’ll be able to get a new helmet, emote, building parts, and more if the community comes together to complete the mission.

No Man’s Sky is available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. You can currently buy the game for less than $25 using a voucher from GMG. With so much changing since launch, those who haven’t played the game in months or years may want to consider jumping back into it.