Well this is quite an expected update, No Man's Sky - Echoes is live as another free upgrade for players and it's a pretty big update for the game full of new content. No Man's Sky is Steam Deck Verified and playable on Linux desktop with Proton.
This update adds in the Autophage, a long-hidden civilization of robotic beings whose bodies are cobbled together with scrap metal and salvaged tech with lots of varied styles. The extra fun thing about them? You get to make your own robotic avatar and customize it to your liking. That's not even the best bit of the update — there's loads to it including: a big expansion to space combat with a lot more depth, pirate frigates with massive space cannons, you can make a unique staff to be your multi-tool, there's also a new class of customizable multi-tool, a new expedition, outlaw capital ships and the list goes on.
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It's safe to say No Man's Sky is now almost an entirely different game to what released originally, it's also becoming one of the most in-depth open-world space games ever made. What they've added in this update alone is pretty amazing, Hello Games continues to impress with the post-release support. Seems like it may be time to play it through.
You can buy it on Humble Store and Steam.
But I *love* me some infrastructure building simulators like Factorio and Satisfactory, or games that at least have it as a big component like Raft and Subnautica (and Astroneer and 7 Days to Die and..). No Man's Sky also really scratches *that* itch for me in a lot of ways, but weirdly not as great of a co-op experience I'd have liked.
I feel like my ideal game would involve something with robust base building, 'proper' Elite / Wing Commander-style flight controls and mechanics (and yes, that's even already Arcade-ified a bit, I know), and a great co-op loop where you can have a team of people working together on a series of ever-bigger projects.
No Man's Sky feels to me like it scratches the surface of so many itches (hooray: we can build underwater bases and have little submarines to go exploring in! We can acquire a big trading fleet of ships that your friends can visit!), while rarely ever getting deep enough to really satisfy me fully (boo: underwater bases seem kind of pointless when the 'ocean' feels like it's barely ankle-deep. That big fleet of trading ships really boils down to a menu screen you interact with to send them off to farm resources.)
I can see what they're going for and I love it - I want more of it - but it forever feels like I'm just kind of sampling something that could be so much bigger. And I don't even know if that kind of game is feasible.
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