June 10, 2020.
Hello Everyone!
A couple of weeks ago, we announced that No Man’s Sky was coming to Xbox Game Pass. We can now reveal that it will enter Game Pass TOMORROW on Thursday 11th June.
To coincide with this, we are releasing a Windows 10 version of the game which will also be part of the Game Pass for PC program.
This means that millions of Xbox One and Windows PC gamers who subscribe to the Game Pass service will be able to try No Man’s Sky for the first time.
Whilst that’s exciting itself, we’ve been busily working on something else in secret for the last few months. Something to allow everyone in the community to benefit from the influx of new players that Game Pass brings.
Do you have a friend on another gaming system with whom you’ve always wanted to explore the great unknown? A legendary base you’ve seen videos of but never been able to visit? A mission that you think would be great to play with friends on other platforms?
We are excited to be able to announce that, starting tomorrow, PlayStation 4 players, Xbox One players and PC players will all be able to explore, journey, survive, build, and trade together. Excitingly, No Man’s Sky is joining what is at the moment a fairly small group of games which support cross-platform multiplayer.
A tremendous amount of work has gone into this update and the underlying technology and systems. We’ve moved to an entirely new networking architecture, with more flexibility for the future, allowing players to play together regardless of platform. I’m very proud of the team that has worked so hard to make this happen.
Meanwhile we are continuing to work hard on new content updates, large and small for the future.
Making No Man’s Sky available to vast new audiences, and allowing those audiences to come together, has been something we’ve been building towards for a long time. We’re lucky to have one of the nicest and most welcoming gaming communities there is, and it’s a delight to be able to allow them to play together. The big question is, who have you always wanted to play with?
Our journey continues.
Sean
Patch Notes
Game Pass
- No Man’s Sky is now available in the Windows Store and is on Game Pass for Xbox One and Windows 10 players.
Cross-Platform Multiplayer
- Replaced the entire network backend, so that players can now make multiplayer connections across all platforms.
- Cross-platform groups can be created or joined in game, or from the frontend.
- Ambient multiplayer on the Space Anomaly, in space, or on planets, can now match you with players from any platform.
- Players from your own platform are identified by your platform’s icon. Players from another platform are identified by a controller icon.
No Man’s Sky Friends
- When face-to-face with another player, a quick interaction has been added to smoothly create a new group or invite new players to your existing group.
- Once in a group with a player, you can use the same interaction to quickly add them to your No Man’s Sky Friends, allowing you to quickly find and join their game again at another time.
- No Man’s Sky Friends can also be added at any time by means of a unique code.
- No Man’s Sky Friends can be managed on a new screen available from the Network Options page.
Chat Options
- Re-enabled Voice Chat on PS4.
- An option to automatically transcribe voice chat has been added to the Network options.
- An option to automatically translate voice chat has been added to the Network options.
- Guidance text has been added to the chat window after typing an unknown command.
- Fixed a number of instances where incorrect auto-chat messages are broadcast.
- Added a system to prevent multiple instances of the same auto-chat message being broadcast.
Quality of Life
- It is now much easier to target other players to see their names.
- Added a warning message when leaving the Anomaly while listed for a Nexus mission that has not started yet.
- Iteration Ares now sells a range of basic upgrade modules.
- Improved the feeding experience when giving bait to large creatures.
- Introduced a small number of general optimisations.
- Introduced some small improvements to load times.
VR Improvements and Bug Fixes
- Upgraded the OpenVR implementation to 1.10.30.
- co*ckpit exit handles can now be grabbed both ways up.
- Added an option to show the player’s body when playing in VR.
- Camera height now reflects the height of your character in VR.
- Improved the accuracy of hand tracking in VR.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue that could prevent rainbows from appearing on some platforms.
- Introduced some minor visual improvements to GTAO to improve quality and reduce smearing artefacts on moving objects.
- Introduced some improvements to the volumetric fog fading effect on planetary approach.
- Fixed an incorrect icon in multiplayer bone-collection missions.
- Fixed an issue that caused full-strength camera shake and controller vibration to be applied whenever a ship landed in multiplayer, regardless of how near that ship was.
- Fixed an issue that caused parts of the backpack to be visible in first-person mode.
- Fixed a console-only issue that caused additional, incorrect, terrain resource markers to appear near to real terrain resource deposits.
- Fixed an issue that caused a misleading “out of jump range” message when out of warp fuel in Creative mode.
- Improved the accuracy of the error message given when unable to summon your starship because you are in combat.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the Antimatter Reactor from being built on planets without atmospheres.
- Fixed an issue that caused some players to appear to bend their knees backwards when aiming at high angles.
- Fixed a stutter that could occur when summoning the Space Anomaly.
- Fixed an issue that could cause ship audio to play repeatedly in multiplayer.
- Fixed a VR issue that could make it difficult to target players who were near the Nexus.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Community Research update message to appear as soon as a player started a new Creative Mode game.
