The creative minds at Hello games are working overtime! When No Man’s Sky was first announced it was received with much praise and anticipation for the grand scale that it was pitching, an ever expanding universe with unique planets, characters, creatures, foliage, and environments?! However, as ambitious as the plan it hit a few hiccups during the 2016 initial release of the game, and as such, was not well received. As I’ve written before, no man sky is the little engine that could when it comes to video games and just won’t quit. This is definitely a game that has a long term vision when it comes to longevity and immersion. This is it’s 19th update and game creator Sean Murray says, in an interview with IGN, that he and his team aren’t close to being finished: “as many updates as we’ve done since launch and as many bucket list items we’ve checked off, our list of things we’re excited about never seems to get any shorter. The team are always coming up with new things that they want to do with the game: new content and features and areas for improvement.”
Weapon graphics upgrade
All of the visual animations and effects of the weapons have been upgraded! Now they have more dynamic blasts and different recoil effects depending on the strength or charge of the weapon.
How does cloaking work on the multi-tool?
New to the sentinel update is the ability to add a cloaking device to your multitool. This allows the player to hide in plain sight for a short period of time. The clock device runs down from 100% to 0% in about five seconds, just enough time for you to get away from a battle.
Is the Minotaur AI any good?
One of the coolest but most underutilized piece of equipment in no man’s guy is the mech style Minotaur. This big fellow leaps through the air for great distances and can harvest minerals and fauna quickly. It can be a little clunky and slow in trying to fight in battle but it was pretty much useless. Now players can equip their Minotaur with its own AI which makes it as loyal as a pet, but this big boy will assist you in battle. The Minotaur isn’t some dumb NPC AI, however. When I engaged my first set of sentinels, I strongly believe that the Minotaur saved my butt more than a few times with its powerful and accurate strikes. After the battle it needed some repairs, so you might want to keep a few storm crystals handy in your inventory If you’re gonna be engaging in a lot of battle.
Are the Revamped Sentinels More Dangerous?
The Sentinels have been revamped and are a lot more diverse in their attack strategies. Now sentinels will attack using coordinated strikes as well as deploying defensive measures like energy shields to hide behind. Some sentinels lob mortars that change the landscape and can make running difficult. One of the sentinels only job is to repair damaged sentinels, and they repair them fast, so a little bit of strategy and planning is necessary when taking on waves of sentinels. New to sentinel Arsenal is their own mech style sentinels that carries a flamethrower as well as lasers. Wave upon Waver Sentinels still keep coming ending with the big Sentinel Walker, however once you’ve taken down the sentinels you’ve hopefully been picking up the canisters that they drop because not only will you get the valuable synthetic item “pugneum” which can be put in your refinery to be converted into nanites but you can also pick up “broken glass” which can be extracted and can give the player a Sentinel multitool, EXOsuit, or menataur upgrade! Some of these upgrades are pretty substantial, like 85% boost to life support tanks, or 35% boost to sprinting, some of them even have two, three, or four bonuses so you definitely want to pick up as many of these broken glass items as you can.
After the battle is over and you lick your wounds there is still one more phase to combating the sentinels who just attacked you. Once you are victorious you’re given a location of a sentinel pillar. This pillar is a heavily guarded tower where the player can shut down all the sentinels planet-wide for a short period of time. The player can shut down the sentinels at the control center located at the base of the pillar. You do not have to engage the sentinels guarding the tower. I myself just jet packed in and dropped down right on top of the terminal. There’s also another opportunity to extract a piece of technology from a sentinel pillar in the form of a new multitool.
The amount of multi tools a player can be carried has also been updated and has gone from 3 to 6. So if you find yourself an S grade multitool at one of these pillars, you’ll definitely want to grab it to add to your collection.
Once aboard the space anomaly on the second floor near the teleporter there is an NPC by the name of TETHYS who talks about how he’s laying low from the Sentinels. So far, there’s no new dialogue after the initial conversation, however it does seem he will have something to say eventually. Creator Sean Murray said, when discussing the update on the Steam platform, that doing these sentinel missions will lead players down to path discovery as to the origin of the Sensinels. Perhaps Tethys is part of that storyline.
This addition to no man’s sky has added a whole new level of diversity and action to the game!
Expedition 5- Exobiology
At the time of this writing expedition 5 has not been made “live” however it is teased on the official website as coming soon and Murray made mention of it dropping sometime this week on his steam update.
As with every new expedition there are unique rewards that can only be earned during the expeditions active phase. some of the things that we were able to get which include a new mech pet that looks very similar to the Minotaur, posters, and a wing style jet pack and trail. The rewards available in the expedition can be viewed at the Quicksilver NPC aboard the Space Anomaly.
This expedition will place the player on a desolate planet with nothing but a pet companion. This expedition is said to take players on a journey to discover new forms of life!
To begin an expedition:
- From the main menu you’ll have to start a new game.
- Select the expedition option, which is the final option on the game screen.
All rewards that are completed in the expedition are available across all saves.
