It’s not an official partnership but the timing and theme of The most recent No Mans Sky expedition has “Dune” written all over it!
In case you’ve been living on a desert planet and haven’t heard of “Dune” it’s a science fiction masterpiece written by Frank Herbert in 1965!
It’s a classic science fiction tale of powerful families fighting each other for more power, wealth, and control over the “spice” trade and the desert world known as “Dune”. Dune is populated by large worms who produce the spice that needs to be mined to make space travel possible.
Dune was made into an amazing and confusing movie in 1984 by Director David Lynch (Twin Peaks) starring Sting, Patrick Stewart; still looking like he does today, and that other guy from Twin Peaks, Kyle MacLachlan.
Dune is getting a lot of mention recently because an updated remake was just released in theaters and streaming on HBOMax to much praise and critical acclaim.
This most recent No Mans Sky updates official name is “Emergence” and has explorers facing extreme temperature planets populated by large space worms that burrow through the planet and fly through the air! Players are tasked with trying to solve the mystery of “The Worm Lord” and mining the worms valuable “cursed dust”.
How to find No Man’s Sky’s Sand Worms
The way to start your journey might not be so obvious to new players, it sure wasn’t for me, so I’ll do my best to make this as “how to not waste time” as possible!
To even begin the expedition players have to start a whole new save file. Yes, that means you’ll not be loading your main character. All players start their expeditions with a random character, multi-tool, and ship. Your first tasks are to secure and repair your ship which will need some maintenance to launch into space.
This current expedition has a total of 5 phases, 4 of which are goal based and the last being a completion reward page. Don’t forget to claim rewards after the completion of each stage. They usually contain items that will help on the next phase.
Larval cores are the most difficult part of of the expedition especially because you start off as a noob and only a few hits from monstrosities will kill you. When you die you loose the majority of your inventory and your gear has a chance to be damaged. You can recover your lost items by locating your grave and retrieving them. It’s no big deal just a loss of time.
Make sure to save at least 10 of your larval cores you’ll need them in a later phase.
Locating a planetary archive can be difficult but thanks to the helpful nature of the No Mans Sky community, it’s not as hard as it could be. A lot of players have set up communication stations around important points of interest so just follow the markers and it shouldn’t be too hard.
Titan Worms are the newest addition to the strange fauna of NMS. These Titans are egg shaped looking beings that are highlighted with a red worm icon when scanning the terrain. They are guarded by Acid spitting Worm tentacles that spew up a core that needs to be collected before it disappears. These comes into play later on in the expedition.
What rewards are available in Expedition 4?
Players get a Vy’Keen head that looks like the saarlac from Star Wars.
A new flying worm pet that can be ridden! I love this pet, it handles the best of the pets I’ve owned so far.
A large “Predator” looking T-Rex type base decoration.
I wouldn’t waste too much time in the expedition trying to improve The Exo-suit, starship or multitool beyond what’s needed to get the job done being that none of these items are transferred to your main save file.
Rewards for the expedition are shared across all saves so there’s a good reason to want to do the expedition before the rewards are gone forever. Players can claim reward onboard the Nexus at the Quicksilver vendor.
The rewards earned for completing all four phases are definitely worth it. It took me a total of 20 hours to complete all of the missions including exploration time, which I tried to keep at a minimal.
Have you tried the No Mans Sky total immersion experience ?
There’s nothing better than a great game you love getting better and No Mans Sky is definitely one of those! I recently just realized a whole new
way to play NMS using The PSVR headset and the PlayStation move controllers. Each controller wand acts as an individual hand. To bring up the players inventory requires the player to activate it on his wrist. To turn on the scanner a player has to reach over their left shoulder and click it on and off. To holster their weapon the player uses the right wand over the right shoulder to holster their multitool. The immersion doesn’t stop on planet. Getting into your ship is a whole new adventure and is equally dynamic. The players left hand works as the throttle pushing the craft faster or slower and the right hand works on the flight stick with the roll and firing controls being located on one hand. Flying takes on a whole new feel using the Wands and can take some time getting used to. Using the triggers interacts with most items for a drag and drop feel. To exit the ship a player has to grab ahold of the exit handles and either push, pull, or lift depending on the ship to exit the craft.
Even flying and controlling your pets feels a little more realistic when using the VR headset and the wands. The left hand works as if you were holding onto a saddle and reins pushing down on the left trigger makes your mount go faster and controls the direction you’re heading.
Playing with the VR definitely adds a whole new level of fun to an already amazing and fun game and if you have the set up I highly recommend it!
