No Man's Sky's Latest Major Update Improves PSVR2 Version, Adds Corrupted Worlds

Really impressed on how many free updates this game keeps getting. No interest in going back, but I was there on day one and this developer really did turn it around instead of giving up like a lot developers would have.

I remember reading that NMS original codename was Project Skyscraper.

I can see why, it's just getting bigger and bigger, coming up to 5 years since initial release now (in August) and no sign that support will be ending.

Supermassive take note........

Is this newcomer friendly? I'd love to give it a go but feel like it's had so much added content that I'll just not have a clue where to start.

What VR2 improvements are we talking here? Like, does it actually look good now?

@invictus4000 want to know this aswell please. I put it aside because it was so blurry. Even more than on the PSVR1 imo. I hope for a massive antiblur patch. Has someone here tried it?

@MickOnYourFace it definitely is. It streamlines the first few tutorial missions to get you up to speed and jetting off pretty quickly now, too.

@Futureshark coming up to six years now, even more impressive!

Insane support for this game, I can kinda see why this wasn't all in final release but damn how this game has changed since Original release
Maybe some other companies can take note here and see the dedication that these devs are showing

Corrupted worlds, blah blah sentinal ships, blah blah, PSVR2 graphics improvements!!

WOW, I've been waiting for this, and have been checking their updates daily, and somehow this article still appeared before I saw it on their site! I wasn't sure if they'd update PSVR2 visuals and kind of assumed they wouldn't. IDK how good it looks yet, but I'm super excited to check it out. Not sure if the patch actually appears on the PS updates just yet.

This game has become THE PSVR2 game for me at this point. I thought the game was boring years ago in 2D, but in VR it's supremely amazing. The graphics have been the only drawback, so if it's been improved, I don't think I'm ever taking the headset off. I knew it'd be one of my "big" VR games, but it's hooked me just as a game in general not just in VR, and I didn't see that coming. Amazing they turned the boring mess from years ago into digital crack, but they somehow did!

@MickOnYourFace IDK about anything multiplayer, I haven't even touched that other than the necessary visits to the "hub" on the Anomaly for to shops/quests there, just doing solo stuff, but as someone that basically just started it with the PSVR2 launch I'd say it's great to jump in now. Most of the "new" stuff just feels like it was always in the box as part of the game, it just seems like an unimaginably enormous game.

For me, a lot of the wow is the VR aspect, it feels like a game that was just meant for VR, I'd bought it years ago for normal play and found it boring at the time, so I don't know how much is the game just got that much better and how much is it just "clicking" more for me in VR, but I don't think there's any issue with it being too big to just jump into it new at all.

FYI there's a "story campaign" of sorts, at least solo that loosely guides you through things. It's not a deep "narrative" or anything, it's text messages, and text dialogs, with quests that provide a bit of a mood/backdrop/mystery and guides you more or less through the basics of going from nothing but a crashed ship to building a complex base and building necessary upgrades, and nudges you in the right directions to start exploring, start combat, etc. It does a good job of both creating a sense of purpose and mystery/danger, as well as making you feel comfortable with the systems, gameplay loop, and setting you up to start exploring on your own. You end up with multiple paths for "quests" that start taking you in new directions.

Everyone starts on the same ashen world with the same crashed ship, and so everyone gets the same primer on the basics. The game really "begins" when you fix up your ship take to space for your second planet and first station. That first planet is ugly and boring, lol.

@MickOnYourFace I think so. When you start, pick the expeditions 9 missions. It'll help you to get used to certain features and give you some fancy rewards that you can take in to a new play through. When you start a a normal game follow the missions. If you find it hard or laborious you can alter the difficulty to make mining faster or non existent. There's so much to do as a single player and multi-player. I'm loving my time with it at the moment.

I really wish I never played this game at release. It wasn’t very good, but my OCD kept me playing, just to keep scanning for every lifeform and naming every planet I came across. When I finally stopped playing it I was sick of it.

I tried playing it again more recently, and could tell that the game was greatly improved. But I couldn’t stick with it because the base gameplay was the same as it was at launch, with the structure and variety of the game being the main upgrades. I still had PTSD from playing it too much at the beginning. 😨

@NEStalgia I wasn't interested in it until I found out they'd make it available on PSVR2.

My only fear is that I'll get motion sick, like I do with all games that require walking. So, my question is, have you experienced any?

Not convinced there is much change on PSVR2 graphics. Looks very much the same to me 🙁

Still playing and the update is more amazing content. But if you are expecting massively improved graphics and significantly less blur, don’t get your hopes up!

Very interested to know if it’s just me though.

@naruball I think there's a teleport movement option in NMR. Probably wise to play it like that until you get used to movement.

It's an amazing game in VR. Even on my blurry OG PS4's PSVR, taking off with my spaceship from planet into space was one of the most exhilarating things I've yet experienced in gaming.

@naruball I might be the worst person to ask since I seem to have a VR "iron stomach" and pretty much nothing bothers me in VR even over hours.

The only useful input I can really provide is there are some games I can feel at least more fatigue on my eyes from and/or if I'm tired and not quite center on the lenses can feel is "off" somehow or disorienting. Horizon is one of those. NMS is not, it's smooth I believe 90fps.

But I've never really experienced motion sickness from even the most extreme VR, so my seal of approval probably won't help much. Theoretically my caution would be too remember there's both land based locomotion as well as 360 space flight and aerial combat so if you're VERY motion sensitive there may be reason for caution.

Otoh the experience is phenomenal if you can do it so caution is good, but it's worth trying if you can. Just, maybe, don't ride the exovehicles (rovers).... They bounce around quite a lot! 😂

@Gribbon Bummer, that sucks, I was really excited about that. It said "significant improvement to image quality in PSVR2", so you'd think it would be visibly better. Unless that part of the update isn't live yet? With fractal the update after the first fixed totally broken terrain tessellation that made everything look like PS3 at first.

@Uromastryx hem HEM.... Supermassive Games...

@Gribbon They definitely made changes, visually. Some good, some bad, it's not as stark visually as I pictured, but it seems like what they did was they increased either the base resolution or base level of detail. I noticed right away on the 2D menus it was higher res. In-game that means things up close are sharper and more detailed. It also looks like they've pushed the draw distance out farther, so the heavy blur starts out farther in front of you than it did, and the blur is reduced at each area of distance vs what it used to be. However, it seems like they also changed the FSAA they were using that induced the blur which makes some things more aliased than they were, I noticed the cockpit of your ship that used to be very clean looking now actually looks aliased, especially on the screens, so the cockpit clarity took a downgrade. And really busy areas like the inside of my main base room with all the terminals and NPCs looks like it's dynamically lower resolution or significantly more aliased, where up close things were sharp but very blurry before from a few footsteps away, now everything looks a bit pixely and low res, and fps drops a little in such places. Space stations....seem about the same? Up close things are sharper and more detailed, but it seems low res/blurry/pixely farther away.

They did make some big changes, but they're more subtle than you might think, and they help some things noticeably, but also hurt a few things. I'm glad they're working on the PSVR2 graphics, and this is probably a net improvement, but I think it still needs some work. Hopefully they'll improve it a bit further, though I'm not expecting a whole lot, I think the engine is limited to a point.

@TeapotBuddha They sort of addressed that which is the point of the new controls. By default the virtual stick controls pitch and yaw and the stick controls roll. WIth this you can change it so the virtual stick controls roll and the real stick controls yaw. So meaningful steering can now be put on the stick, but pitch is still on the virtual. If it didn't have lock-on for combat it would be horrible, but lock-on keeps it from being unweildy.

@NEStalgia I played for a few hours last night and one of my major takeaways was it felt a lot less straining on the eyes to play for that period of time. I agree that I think the draw/blur distance has been increased as when scanning for creatures it felt easier looking at the horizon.

Overall agree with your comments - I think they probably oversold it with the statement in the patch notes is where people’s frustration is coming from.

I was holding out getting too deep this play through to wait for some revolution in graphics but I don’t think that’s realistic now. So will just enjoy it for what it is

@Gribbon Yeah, I do think theres still some room for tweaking gfx and performance, especially how the cockpit got nerfed a little by this, but overall I think this is about as good as it's going to get now, and PC isn't really that much better from what I've read. Up close it looks mostly like 2d now with the improved resolution and improved text resolution. Distance the limitation is the custom engine will probably never support foveated rendering even on PC, so they can't do much more with draw distances I think. It needs more tuning but it's not in a bad place right now really. It's easily my #1 vr game. Which is good because I paid the full $60 for it 😂

They do need a patch to fix the fact that the reintroduced the bug where ui panels like the the refiner appear inside/behind it. They fixed that last month and now it's back.