The Best Space Exploration Sim Will Let You Become Mayor Of Your Own Town
Frontier business.
Have you ever dreamed of becoming mayor of your own backwater town in the deep recesses of infinite space? Well, the best space exploration game of the decade just released another free expansion that will let you fulfill that particular fantasy to your heart’s content.
No Man’s Sky just dropped its latest update titled Beacon, a complete overhaul of what’s possible in planetary settlements made throughout the galaxy. As detailed in another one of Hello Games’ excellent trailers, Beacons allows players to discover and lead robotic towns as mayor. As a settlement leader, players can make crucial decisions about a town’s production and create new structures like bars and fishing ponds for townsfolk to enjoy. Keeping people happy will be a big part of this.
“You can upgrade the settlements,” Hello Games Managing Director Sean Murray says. “Each inhabitant has their own little backstory.”
Being a leader won’t just be about growing your town into a thriving center. Players will have to protect their settlement from outsiders and invaders by hiring a defensive squadron. They’ll also act as the mediator who resolves disputes between town inhabitants. The trailer promises this is just the beginning of Hello Games’ plans for overhauled settlement mechanics.
Beacon follows nine years’ worth of game-altering updates for No Man’s Sky. What started as an ambitious indie game about reaching the center of the galaxy has since evolved into one of the most expansive crafting and space exploration games available today. Past updates have added fossils to explore and museums to build, steadily improving the realism of naturally occurring phenomena like mountains and oceans, seamless multiplayer, and new mysteries to uncover in the game’s infinite galaxy. It’s remarkable to see just how far the game has come since its disappointing launch in 2016.
The features being added with Beacon seem like No Man’s Sky’s take on Fallout 4’s settlement system. That game similarly let players create elaborate bases in the wasteland that attracted wanderers and raiders alike. Adding an element of spacey science fiction to the mix is a perfect way to evolve the idea for the space-faring adventure game.
Beacon is launching just two days before the upcoming Switch 2 port of No Man’s Sky. Murray explained that this new and improved version has been in development for a year.
“With the original Switch, we were pushing right at the edge of what was possible,” he said. “No Man’s Sky’s on the Switch 2 is just a huge leap forward. The extra horsepower allows us to add full multiplayer for the first time on Switch 2.”
The Beacons update will let you lead a planet settlement to prosperity.
The port will have an improved framerate, more density on screen when exploring, and will take advantage of FSR to render sharper details. It will also take advantage of the console’s gyro sensors and touch screen, following a trend of Switch 2 launch games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Civilization 7 which each have console-exclusive features.
The Switch 2 port will be a free update for everyone who owns a copy of the game on the original Nintendo Switch. It’s a refreshingly welcome announcement as not every Switch 2 game affords players that luxury (some for good reason). Crossplay and cross-saves will also work at launch according to Hello Games, letting diehard No Man’s Sky players pick up wherever they left off.
No Man’s Sky joins the list of Switch 1 games that will provide free updates to early Switch 2 adopters later this week. Nintendo announced that eight other games, including the recently released Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Super Mario Wonder, and Pikmin 3, will join the list of previously confirmed games.
