No Man's Sky - The Path Finder Update feels almost like an entirely new game, 4K HDR support for PS4 Pro

It’s no secret that No Man’s Sky was met with mixed reviews. While some adored the idea of exploring the universe quietly by yourself, others found there to not be enough substance to keep their attention long enough and what there was to do felt too repetitive. Now months after the game’s release, a large new update is dropping, which frankly feels like a mini expansion pack that will bring hoards of new features and vehicles to the game alongside PS4 Pro with HDR support. Specifically, the Path Finder update brings with it:

VISUAL UPDATES

We’ve introduced a host of visual improvements, allowing you to explore the universe in even greater detail.

High and ultra resolution textures

More accurate Ambient Lighting

Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion

High contrast lighting effects

Crepuscular Rays from the Sun

Improved post-processing with several filter options

HDR mode for compatible monitors and televisions

ONLINE BASE SHARING

Bases can now be shared online, allowing other players to discover and explore your outpost.

Steam Workshop integration allows players to upload their bases to the Workshop, making it easy for other players to discover, visit, rate and subscribe to your creations.

OWN MULTIPLE SHIPS

Use the enormous hanger in your Freighter to purchase and store your own collection of starships.

This is even more meaningful with the introduction of ship specialisation, classes and the ability to trade in previous ships against new purchases

STARSHIP SPECIALISATIONS

Find and collect the perfect starship with new specialisations and classes.

Each starship has a specialisation (Shuttle, Fighter, Hauler or Science) that improves performance in specific areas.

Shuttles are all-rounders, Fighters specialise in combat, Haulers have expanded cargo holds and Science vessels feature increased warp capabilities

In addition to new ship types, all ships will now be class-rated: A, B, C or the ultra rare S class

When purchasing a new ship, you’ll now be given the option to trade in your current ship for a discount

PLAYSTATION 4 PRO

PS4 Pro support has been enabled allowing 4K resolution gameplay. 4K rendering on PC has also been optimised. Together with visual improvements for all versions, No Man’s Sky has never looked better.

NEW VEHICLES – EXOCRAFT

Master the surface of your home planet using new Exocraft. These land-based vehicles give new meaning to planetary navigation, combat and mining – and can be summoned from anywhere on the planet they were constructed upon.

Nomad – The smallest Exocraft is the Nomad. What it may lack in cargo space, this hovercraft makes up for in speed, agility and its ability to glide over water

Roamer – The mid-range Exocraft is the Roamer, a great all-rounder capable of quickly crossing rugged terrain and adapting to most situations

Colossus – Finally, the Colossus is the largest of the Exocraft. This lumbering behemoth offers an enormous cargo hold perfect for those looking to harvest resources

Acquire Exocraft by hiring a Vy’keen Technician for your planetary base and completing a new series of missions

Mount powerful mining lasers and harvest resources with far greater efficiency

High-intensity long-range scanners aid the discovery of distant buildings, objects and resources

Equip weapons and eliminate threats with increased firepower

Boost your vehicle’s speed with the acceleration module

EXOCRAFT RACES

Hone your driving skills by building your own race circuit on your home planet. Find the most interesting planet, create a time trial and challenge others to beat it.

Obtain the Race Initiator and place it inside your Base Building zone

Hop into your vehicle and drive the route you’d like to map out, dropping checkpoint markers anywhere on the planet

Once a circuit is complete, race the track over and over to set an unbeatable lap time

Players visiting your base via Base Sharing will be able to race using the circuit you created, challenging themselves against your split times

NEW SHOPS AND TRADERS

New traders have been added to space stations and bases, as well as a new currency

Nanite Clusters can be found in various locations including abandoned bases and cargo crates

Blueprint stock will refresh periodically, so check back from time to time to see if any new or rare blueprints have become available

Traders aboard space stations will exchange Nanite Clusters for your choice of blueprints

Your standing with the three NPC factions is now more important, as traders will only sell the best technology to their closest allies

Your standing with a faction can be improved by offering relics and curiosities to their representatives, or through conversation choices

Seek out Vy’keen traders for Multi-tool technology, Gek for ship upgrades and the Korvax for Exosuit improvement blueprints

A new building trader will now visit your home base, and will sell new base constructs in exchange for credits

BASE BUILDING VARIETY

Customisation options for your base have more than doubled.

More than 40 new base-building parts have been added, including coloured lights, stairs, observation domes and more

Personalise your base further with new material aesthetics including Wood, Stone, Metal as well as several new colours

Put the finishing touches to your home, choosing from an array of new furniture finishes

Decorate your walls with dozens of new decals. Earn extra decals by visiting the bases of other players

MULTI-TOOL SPECIALIZATION AND CLASSES

Multi-tool specialisations and classes have been introduced. Choose between pistol, rifle, experimental and alien specialisations.

Pistols offer increased mining capabilities, Rifles provide combat advantages and Experimental weapons are attuned to scanning. The rarest and most powerful are Alien Multi-tools

Similar to starships, weapons are also S, A, B or C class-rated

When purchasing a new Multi-tool, you can now trade in your current model for a discount

NEW WEAPON MODES

Both Multi-tool and ship weaponry can be upgraded for improved combat effectiveness.

Three new weapons can be installed into Multi-tools alongside the existing Boltcaster weapon. Each weapon provides a unique combat style:

The Scatter Blaster is most effective in close range encounters, able to damage multiple foes at once

The Pulse Spitter is ideal for mid-range skirmishes, particularly against fast moving opponents

The Blaze Javelin is a long range weapon, capable of eliminating enemies from afar

New ship weaponry offers advanced tactical opportunities:

The Cyclotron Ballista fires a concentrated ball of charged particles at forward targets, causing heavy damage

The Positron Ejector shoots in a wide cone of destruction

The Infra-Knife Accelerator releases a sustained burst of rapid fire

PERMADEATH MODE

A new Permadeath mode has been added, offering the greatest challenge yet. The consequences of death will be absolute.

The difficulty level of Permadeath mode mirrors Survival mode

Survival mode difficulty has been further increased. Dying in space will now restart you on the nearest planet’s surface, away from your crashed ship

PHOTO MODE

Document your journey with a dedicated photo mode

Find the perfect angle for your shot in free camera mode, revealing your Starship in third person

Pause and change the time of day for the perfect lighting conditions

Change cloud layers and fog density to take the most atmospheric shots possible

New photo filters can be used to add a finishing touch

Share your favourite screenshots with the community using PS4 or Steam sharing functionality

DISCOVERY MENU

Improvements to the discovery menu allow travellers to journey with a better sense of purpose.

Your home planet is marked on the Galaxy Map, giving you a clearer feeling of your place in the universe

Use the discovery page to easily browse planetary information, including resource and biome data

Previously visited planets can be marked with Waypoints, simplifying return navigation

MUSIC FROM 65DAYSOFSTATIC

Our favorite band 65daysofstatic has been back in the studio recording 8 new soundscapes for in-game, as well as lots of new loading music.

QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS

Thanks to your feedback, we have introduced a number of changes to improve the gameplay experience.

It is now possible to skip the ‘Journey Milestone’ black bars, and these have been reduced or removed in many areas

NPC interaction text now appears faster, and can now be skipped

The option to return to ‘Game Mode Select’ has been added, allowing players to quickly change game mode

A Mission Log has been added to allow players to track multiple objectives

The user interface has been made easier to read in many places, and background graphics have been added

Atmospheric low-flight has been adjusted and improved

Ships, weapons, vehicles, freighters and bases can now all be renamed

Long-clicks have been removed in many menus places to allow for faster interface navigation

PATCH NOTES

AUDIO

50% more generative soundscapes

Additional game loading and game start music

Added multi-room base ambiences

More detailed rain system, including room dependent and indoor window rain

Added indoor storm ambience

Changes to reverb system

Fix for a flood of sounds which could occur during the tutorial

SHIPS AND SPACE

Improved ship landing code

Fixed AI ships appearing in the air with landing gear deployed

Ship weapons operate using a new multi-mode system

Fix for being able to spawn freighters underground while you are jetpacking

Prevent all docking points in stations, freighters and outposts being taken by AI ships

Fixed issue where ships could occasionally become invisible

Fixed an issue where spawning into a freighter in near-planet orbit would occasionally place the player underground

Freighter containers now drop less Titanium, Thamium and Copper

Freighter containers now have a chance to drop Nanite Clusters

Traders can now drop Nanite Clusters

Traders no longer drop Copper or Iron

Reduced camera shake whilst taking hits in space combat

Reduced pirate damage in survival mode

Reduced damage on ship laser

Tweaked ship exit animations to improve player placement

GAMEPLAY

Added damage and resource numbers in combat and when mining, toggleable in the Options menu

Allow multiple weapon types on the multitool

Free weapons and ships now have broken slots

Recruit NPCs have more descriptive names

Fixed holes appearing in high detail terrain regions

Made player respawn positioning more robust

Introduced new growable plant type

Fixed slow memory leak in material effects

Removed several minor memory leaks on warp

Boosted shield recharge rate whilst in caves slightly

BoltCaster Rate of Fire and Laser Mining Speed upgrades are now known from start. Tweaked build requirements so that both are possible to build on player’s first planet

Drones now drop small amount of zinc on destruction

Reduced amount of platinum from depots

Fixed Vy’Keen depots dropping titanium instead of platinum

Improved balance of hazards on Scorched and Frozen planets

Reworked NPC secondary interactions to give you standing in exchange for offerings

Reduced the amount of tech given by NPCs. In most cases they will now reward tech fragments instead of blueprints

Reduced the amount of tech available for NPC reward

Fixed projectiles shooting through certain unmineable substances

Adjusted space stations to minimise cases where NPCs intersect with the environment

Fixed issue where the suit upgrade chamber would occasionally disappear

BASE BUILDING

Fixed NPC terminals and ladders being removed from the central room of bases after the player leaves

Moved snap points for the glass corridor to be correctly grid aligned

Galactic Terminals now have consistent pricing, regardless of where in a base they are added

Fixed plants not being removed after removing the planter below them

Deleting a room now refunds not only the room itself, but also its contents

Fixed some plants and rocks not being removed when placing down a base building part

Fixed the colour of the base terminal light occasionally resetting to red

Terminals no longer can be build over windows in the central room

Fixed base building colours becoming corrupt under specific circumstances

Fixed some NPC missions counting the number of parts in your base incorrectly

Fixed landing pad not snapping correctly to some parts

Fixed issues where resource harvester would fail to gather resources

Left mouse button and right trigger can now be used to build

Fixed various precision problems with building in freighters

Fixed some cases where grenades would fail to edit the terrain

Organised parts in the base building menu to be more intuitive

UI

Added animation within the Quick Menu

Changed the hyperdrive stat to be measured in Light Years

Opening the menu will now return to the last page you viewed

Added a new Tech stat section to the Tech info popup

Improved mouse smoothing

Improved mouse sensitivity

Clearer and more detailed multitool, ship and freighter comparison screen

Fixed flickering transition between Inventory and Options Menu pages

Reduced number of menu options requiring a button to be held rather than pressed

Improved responsiveness of button holding

Fixed a bug in the options menu where the title bar would flicker

Improvements to discovery timeline UI

Added “Set Waypoint” option to the solar system pop-up

Improved alignment at aspect ratios other than 16:9

Prevented player notifications showing up during credits and redeem screen

Fixed issue whether error messages would be shown for charging and repairing before the options had been selected

Increased icon resolutions to support play at 4k resolutions

Fullscreen effects are now correctly displayed when entering a hazard

Disabled the quick menu while warping between systems

Removed obsolete Generation Detail option in settings

Updated display of new discoveries to be clearer and more readable

Fixed some Japanese and Russian localisation issues and text overlap

Made cinematic black bars less frequent and obtrusive

Made is so cinematic black bars can be dismissed

Race standing is now displayed on the journey milestone page

Fixed various windows occasionally appearing partially offscreen

New visuals and backgrounds on mode select, options and inventory screens

VISUALS

Reduced banding artifacts on some metallic surfaces

Fixed seam artifacts on some normal maps

Fixed shadows being too black over water on certain planets

Fixed very occasional errant black geometry in space

Improved performance of water rendering

Improved performance in forward rendering passes

Improved performance in spotlight rendering

Fixed some issues with flickering lights

Correctly oriented IBL map, fixing several lighting issues

Fixed issue where vertex displacement would glitch when walking between regions

PC

Support for Intel HD Graphics 530, 540, 550, 580, 630, 640, 650

Reduced banding artifacts in gamma correction on some GPUs

Escape key now goes directly to the quit options page

Improved and expanded Steam Controller mapping

PS4