No Man’s Sky update is live, includes Survival Mode and Base Building

The patch Sean Murray teased is now live and the notes are available here.

The Foundation Update will expand the base game to feature three modes:

• Normal mode is the original chilled exploration experience
• Creative mode allows players to explore the universe without limits, and build a huge base
• Survival mode really changes the game, creating a much more challenging endurance experience

In Base Building, players claim a home planet and uninhabited base to build and decorate using gathered resources. You can also recruit alien lifeforms to research tech, work the farms, and create weapons.

Farming looks to be a large component.

Survival Mode promises to show you plenty of death screens.

To accommodate the increased challenge, Hello Game’s promises a more streamlined inventory system and easier to read UI.

There’s a very long list of patch note bullet points available on their site. Not having played the game myself, I’ll take a stab at a few I think sound great

• Fixed technology becoming instantly fully charged when repaired
• Increased the number of different NPC character models generated per system
• Fixed the game always remaining in day time for players who began their save prior to patch 1.03
• Improved navigation in discovery UI
• Massive speed improvements to browsing huge discovery lists
• Increased size of discovery storage
• (PS4) Added photo mode
• (PC) Added support for up to 8 mouse buttons
• Adopted new method of distributing resource plants on terrain, for more lifelike clumps of plants
• Improved distribution of plant life across all terrain types
• Reduced average building frequency
• Introduced planets with elevated building density
• Introduced planets with no buildings or sentient life
• Increased the proportion of lush and tropical planets
• Decreased the proportion of lifeless planets
• Space Combat
  • Fixed bounty targets warping out too soon
  • Improved HUD indicators in space combat
  • Added damaged ship effect on AI starships
  • Added formation flying
  • Improved locking on passive starships
  • Improved AI combat flight patterns
  • Added new ship weapon technology
  • Holding brake whilst turning now activates drift for fast turns
  • Improved AI ship freighter attacking
  • Improved freighter targeting code when under attack by enemy ships
  • Freighters
    • Fixed pulse drive to prevent travel through freighters
    • Improved docking code
    • Added hangar to the lead freighter
    • Added docking in freighters
    • Added icon to accessible freighter hangars
    • Added colouring to cargo drops to identify what is in them
    • You can now only pick up cargo drops that will fit in your inventory
    • Added auxiliary freight ships to freighter groups
  •  When on a dead planet, no music will play

While this update isn’t enough to make me rush out and purchase No Man’s Sky, it’s definitely a substantial step towards providing a fuller experience and repairing the PR disaster of their launch.

Hello Games promises that this is just the first in a series of free updates. If they introduce proper multiplayer while people still care about the game, I fully expect the internet to break.

Is this enough to change your mind on the game?