Those who hoped No Man’s Sky would evolve from its weak beginnings will be happy to hear that their prayers have been heard and answered. No Man’s Sky NEXT brings forth a slew of significant updates for all previous owners of No Man’s Sky. Multiplayer, more worlds to explore and a new third person mode alter No Man’s Sky into a game worthy of its large-scale epic nature. If you have been holding off on No Man’s Sky we don’t blame you. Maybe No Man’s Sky NEXT will be the game you’ve wanted and will finally convince you to pick it up.

No Man’s Sky NEXT aims to deliver several HUGE updates to No Man’s Sky base game, some of which were anticipated when the game first released years ago. Multiplayer, some much needed space exploration concepts and bigger space battles have been placed in No Man’s Sky thanks to the NEXT update. No Man’s Sky NEXT now will wow players with a more robust resource system as well as the ability to build structures on planets for a means of respite from exploring and just to make your planets discovered feel more personal than before. Have you grown bored of No Man’s Sky and or want a reason to try this large-scale indie game out? Then go download—or purchase—No Man’s Sky NEXT and see what awaits you in the stars now.

For reasons unknown, you and your ship have crashed on an undefined planet. Gathering what wits you have, you decide to explore this planet for a means of fixing your ship. Your mission is simple space traveler. Return to the depths of space and explore this new galaxy in search of an unknown signal and coordination. Remember though, space isn’t a friendly place and while its filled with wonders and secrets to discover…it’s also filled with dangers both known and unknown…

When No Man’s Sky was first announced, people couldn’t stop talking about how excited and hyped they were for it. Unfortunately, upon its release, No Man’s Sky was met with mixed to poor reviews due to the many things promised to gamers that were missing in its initial launch. Despite the lack of love for this space filled adventure title, the team at Hello Games continued to promise updates would come to fix the problems and bring forth the game people expected. After nearly two years, No Man’s Sky NEXT has been released as a free download that claims to bring with it the fixes this game needed so desperately. Does No Man’s Sky NEXT deliver? Let’s find out in our review No Man’s Sky NEXT for the Xbox One!

Since two years have passed, we’ll give you a quick refresher course on what No Man’s Sky is all about. The main concept of No Man’s Sky is to explore randomly generated planets, find resources for things like crafting new ships and to sell and to get ever closer to discovering everything that this giant world has to offer. No Man’s Sky NEXT delivers several rather large updates in the form of multiplayer and new game additions that help No Man’s Sky in several ways. We’ll break down each of the major updates and talk about the pros/cons of each. Let’s begin with changes in base gameplay.

With No Man’s Sky NEXT, the biggest changes gameplay wise is the addition of building bases anywhere, using them as teleporters—basically fast travel—and giving your planets a bit more of your own personal touches. No Man’s Sky NEXT also now can be played entirely in third person which adds a nice new visual perspective to the game and makes for some rather cool new ways to explore. There’s also a nice level of customization for your avatar to make some really personalized space explorers. There are also a ton—and we mean a ton—of different ways to gather resources and how you can craft new ones using items like refiners which gives No Man’s Sky NEXT just a bit more depth to its tedious resource system.

The cons of the No Man’s Sky NEXT’s gameplay though is that ultimately, it hasn’t changed. We aren’t joking though, folks. Your main objective still is to gather resources for more advancements—like spaceships and armadas—but that gets old really fast. It’s tons of fun for a good several hours, but unless you’re into grinding heavy games then you’re going to wish there was more to do. While space battles help and the introduction of multiplayer keeps things from getting stale, if you’re into playing No Man’s Sky NEXT alone you’re going to lose enjoyment faster than your warp drives.

Speaking about multiplayer, this is where No Man’s Sky NEXT truly shines in its long-awaited addition. Players can now finally hop into other worlds with friends/strangers to explore the galaxy together. Playing with friends is the true way to go though. If you do join a random game, sometimes it can take a while to find others and they may also kick you out if you aren’t doing anything for them, we had this happen several times to us personally. Though if you can grab some friends, No Man’s Sky NEXT is a lot of fun and multiplayer is a much-needed way to keep the lifespan going further than the original base game was able to bring.

Lastly, No Man’s Sky NEXT does add some smaller features that we’d like to point out. There are a lot more planets/environments to see—at least in our minds—to find in No Man’s Sky now. Even your starting locations can offer up some rather harsh spaces for beginners that will test your survival skills quite early on. It’s small features like this that kept us from feeling bored when we decided to start No Man’s Sky NEXT from the ground up for this review. We also think older players should do the same to get a refreshers course on what to expect from some of the major updates to be found in NEXT.

At its core, No Man’s Sky NEXT changes little of the base game but adds upon it in numerous ways that work quite well. The addition of multiplayer is where No Man’s Sky NEXT shines brightest giving players a world of endless possibilities to build together and explore cooperatively. We also enjoyed the stronger systems of building bases and giving players more to do then in the original vanilla version. Unfortunately, No Man’s Sky NEXT still suffers from tedious gameplay that has players mining for resources for hours upon hours with the only pay off being in the form of getting more ships, currency and upgrades. Your enjoyment of No Man’s Sky NEXT will be solely based on if you loved the original version but hated the bugs and lack of features it contained. Though for those who own No Man’s Sky already, NEXT is completely free and thus warrants a download just to see if maybe you will like what’s been changed in this huge update.

The beauty of No Man’s Sky NEXT is that this already big world has increased in scale and dimension offering up a lot of what players wanted to see originally. What’s even better is that being free means you can enjoy all these changes without having to shell out a dime. The base game of No Man’s Sky is also fairly cheap at around $30 which might give incentive to those who haven’t bought it yet to try NEXT out for themselves. Have you downloaded No Man’s Sky NEXT? Share with us your thoughts if you did in the comments section below! Stick around to our hive as well for more game reviews, news and gaming articles done by us here at Honey’s Anime.