Hello Games founder Sean Murray published a post on the No Man’s Sky site describing a day-one patch for the game. From what he described, it’s less a patch and more an overhaul.
To begin with, the algorithm that generates objects in the universe has been changed, and galaxies are up to ten times larger. Planets will be allowed to move in and out of galaxies with the goal of adding more variety to the galaxies. The planets will have more diverse creatures, and the creatures will have a specific diet. Proper feeding of the creatures will net their assistance. All of these changes come with a new graphical sheen.
There will also be three story “paths” with the day-one patch, one of which was rewritten completely. There will be a greater variety of ships in each star system, some available for purchase. The ships will have more unique attributes and their inventories will store 5 times more resources per slot. Personal suit inventories will also store 2.5 times more per slot.
All of these changes – and dozens more – fundamentally change No Man’s Sky. This is nowhere near the same game out in the wild now. On Friday, Sony announced that it was withholding review copies because of the changes the patch makes. On Monday, the day the patch goes live, the servers will be wiped. That will ruin all saved progress up to this point.
This should assuage some fans, who were disappointed when a person who paid $1,300 on eBay for an early copy of the game, streamed the gameplay. There were many bugs in the game, and the user reached the center of his galaxy after 30 hours of gameplay. However, gaming sites like Kotaku and Polygon that did receive an early copy will have to push back their reviews to account for the day-one patch.
No Man’s Sky will release on August 9th for the PlayStation 4.
