“No Man’s Sky” is a sci-fi themed RPG that has been trying to make a fully fleshed out open world for the last five years. The latest update to “No Man’s Sky” is an excellent addition to the game but does not bring the changes necessary to fulfil its promises to players. The Outlaws update has brought many new features, namely better ship combat, trading, and character customization. While there are still some bugs to figure out, the development team has been quick to patch them and all features are working as intended. The ship combat has been one off the more notable improvements, bringing more challenge and sense of space to what was previously boring travel.
“No Man’s Sky” has had many updates to improve moment to moment gameplay over the years. The main complaint of the game is that often tasks are repetitive even if procedurally generated to generate more variety. The Outlaws update has done a lot to fix this for “No Man’s Sky” most repetitive and boring task-travel. Updates to ship combat has made travel more challenging and has mostly avoided the trap of making challenge based on resources and not on skill. The new weapons system and flying mechanics mean that even if fights are not a danger or challenging, they are at the very least interesting.

However, this is still only a small step toward a more fully fleshed out open world. The combat mechanics are good, but still have little to offer when compared to more dedicated flight games. The controls are still too simplistic. The problem with open worlds is that not everyone will want to engage with all the parts of the game, and so individual mechanics will often not be a challenge or trivial to avoid. This update only partially fixes these problems, and problems like this are likely to persist in open worlds for a long time.

Overall, the Outlaws update to “No Man’s Sky” is a particularly good addition to the game, considering “No Man’s Sky” flaws. Traveling and trading were the weakest elements of the game, often boring and repetitive, and Outlaws has made them far more mechanically engaging. “No Man’s Sky” remains an excellent game. While this update may not be enough to make more people play “No Man’s Sky”, it is still an important addition to the game and step forward in the open world genre.