Hello Games has released the “Fractal” (version 4.1) update for No Man’s Sky, which adds PlayStation VR2 support, a catalogue of your greatest discoveries, a huge number of quality of life and accessibility improvements, gyroscopic control support, and more.
Here is an overview of the update, via its official website:
Completely immerse yourself in an infinite universe with No Man’s Sky update 4.1, “Fractal”! Introducing a catalogue of your most incredible discoveries, a huge number of quality of life and accessibility improvements, gyroscopic control support, full support for PlayStation VR2, and much more!
- Utopia Expedition – The once-affluent system of Bakkin has fallen into decay: trade routes halted, the Space Station abandoned and rotting, intelligent lifeforms departed. Anomalous solar activity prevents the crafting of items beyond the shelter of a planetary base. Thankfully, for the good of all, the generous Utopia Foundation is coordinating a grand reconstruction project. Join the communal habitation team, settler, and help make Bakkin beautiful and productive once more!
- Wonderous Discoveries – Browse through your most impressive and bizarre discoveries in the new Wonders section of the Catalogue. Explore an ever-evolving collection of mementos from your journey: from the largest herbivorous creature, to the most ancient tree, to the planet most approaching paradise.
- Improved HDR Lighting – Color grading for high dynamic range (HDR) displays has been completely reworked, bringing the hues and tones of the universe closer to the look of a standard dynamic range display, while still enhanced by the brilliant lights and intense shadows of HDR.
- Utopia Speeder Starship – Complete the full program of Utopia Foundation assignments to receive the exclusive Utopia Speeder starship. This versatile craft is plated with radiation-resistant armor, and engineered with an aerodynamic profile for agility during atmospheric flight.
- PlayStation VR2 Support – Launching together with the new PlayStation VR2 hardware, No Man’s Sky is a more immersive Virtual Reality experience than ever. Travellers can explore the universe in up to 4K resolution, pilot ships and wield Multi-Tools with the new ergonomic Sense controllers, and benefit from a vast number of gameplay and quality of life improvements.
- Nexus Missions on Switch – For the first time on Nintendo Switch, sign up at the Space Anomaly to undertake challenging missions for Priest Entity Nada and Specialist Polo. The Nexus interface offers an ever-updating selection of missions at specific locations, ranging from discovery, to combat, to base building, and much more. Every day, with a bonus at weekends, the Nexus offers a new mission rewarding Quicksilver. Polo’s Quicksilver Synthesis Companion will be pleased to exchange this special currency for a wide range of exotic collectables.
- Clearer Game Options – Game Options are now available from the opening screens of the game, allowing you to tweak settings such as volume and resolution before loading into gameplay. Options have been reorganized for ease of use, and clarifying descriptions have been added to explain the function of each option.
- Fearsome Visor – Utopia settlers will receive this exclusive appearance customization: the Fearsome Visor. Strike dread into the hearts of your foes with this oxide-strengthened helmet.
- PlayStation VR2 Visual Quality – The universe looks crisper and more beautiful in PlayStation VR2, with higher quality textures, improved particle rendering, terrain tessellation effects, increased planetary details, increased draw distances, and much more. These improvements, combined with support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 technology on PlayStation technology, create the best-looking PlayStation VR experience yet.
- Twitch Rewards – Tune in to Twitch streams of No Man’s Sky to earn in-game rewards. Sign up and link your platform accounts on the Twitch Drops page, then watch other Travellers explore the Fractal update to earn special companions, starships, appearance modifications, exotic base parts, and more! Visit the Quicksilver Synthesis Companion aboard the Space Anomaly to redeem Twitch rewards.
- Alien Structure Ambience – A deeper sense of mystery surrounds ancient portals, plaques, and monoliths, with the addition of ambient mist and dramatic new visual effects upon activation.
- Virtual Reality Overhaul – The experience of playing in virtual reality has been improved across the board. When playing with a controller tracked in each hand, the Personal Forcefield will move attached to your non-dominant hand, allowing you to reflexively and intuitively deflect enemy fire. Mission locations and power hotspots are more intuitive to pinpoint, with revamped Target Sweep and Hotspot Surveying controls for the Analysis Visor.
- Dynamic Resolution Scaling – Dynamic scaling on PlayStation 5 invisibly adapts your display resolution during play, ensuring a smooth framerate at all times, and a significant improvement to visual quality in situations such as space flight. Transitioning between deep-space exploration and low-altitude flight is now completely seamless and hitch-free.
- Virtual Reality Base Building – Constructing a base in Virtual Reality is more intuitive than ever. Placement options now appear wherever you look, and you can select a position by pointing to it. Base parts can now be recolored in virtual reality, to enhance your base’s aesthetic with the full range of colors and materials.
- Catalogued Treasures – Your most lucrative treasures, from leather-bound anthologies to eldritch bio-anomalies, are now recorded in the Wonders section of the Catalogue. Planetary glitches, such as electric cubes and bubble clusters, are also counted here as you retrieve them from exotic biomes.
- Virtual Reality Galaxy Map – Navigating and selecting warp destinations in the Virtual Reality Galaxy Map has been improved, and it is now possible to travel through the center of the galaxy in virtual reality.
- New Accessibility Features – A significant number of new game options allow you to customize your experience for accessibility and ease of use. New options include a range of tools to adjust visual effects, cameras, and controls for the most comfortable experience possible. Specific settings include a setting for the Analysis Visor to automatically scan fauna, flora and minerals when centered on screen, without requiring a second simultaneous button push. In addition to the existing HUD Scale option, some menu text can now also be enlarged to increase readability, especially from a distance.
- Holographic Friend – Contributors to the Utopia communal habitation project will receive this exclusive holographic base part, providing eternal friendship to even the loneliest of bases!
- Customize Your Gameplay – The player character may now be shown on the right side of the screen, operating the Multi-Tool with their left hand. The auto-rotation behavior of the third-person camera can be disabled, allowing complete manual control of the camera rotation. A network privilege can be set for which players are permitted to access the contents of your refiner. The game language may now be set from within No Man’s Sky, independently of your system language.
- Quality of Life – A polish pass has improved quality of life across a wide range of gameplay features. Quick charge allows base parts such as refiners to be fully refueled with a single button press. The system for synchronizing the contents of your refiner in multiplayer has been completely reworked for reliability and stability. An emergency warp button will now allow you to reset your position in your freighter, to rescue any ambitious builders who have become caught within the freighter base.
- New Virtual Reality Options – When exploring on foot or piloting your ship in virtual reality, the distance of the User Interface (UI) and Heads-Up Display (HUD) can now be fine-tuned to your exact preference, to maximize physical comfort. While playing PlayStation VR (PlayStation 4) using a DualShock 4, you may now use motion controls to operate the cursor in menus. All virtual reality players can now adjust the intensity of the vignette effect at the edge of your vision, to suit your individual comfort level.
- Robo-Warden Companion – The Utopia Foundation provides its most hardworking settlers with an exclusive hovering valet, the Robo-Warden. This electronic companion is programmed to be meticulous and dependable as it assists you on your journey.
- PlayStation VR2 Headset Feedback – Subtle headset vibrations in PlayStation VR2 elevate sensory feedback to a new level of immersion. The visor will echo the quaking of the earth as titan worms thunder from the soil. Experience your cockpit rumble around you as you breach planetary atmosphere. Feel the blast of nearby lightning strikes, volcanic eruptions, and other terrestrial phenomena. The strength of these vibrations can be tuned to your preferences in the Options menu.
- “A Trace of Metal” on Switch – For the first time on Nintendo Switch, delve into the secrets of the Sentinels in the story-driven mission “A Trace of Metal”. Collaborate with Iteration: Tethys, befriend a drone and steal powerful Sentinel technology to upgrade your Minotaur Exocraft.
- Motion Controls – On PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, stick input can now be enhanced with gyroscopic motion sensor control. Achieve effortless precision when aiming at enemies with the Multi-Tool, and feel fully immersed as you tilt your hands to scan fauna with the Analysis Visor. Motion control can be enabled and disabled for individual contexts, and the sensitivity and smoothing can be fine-tuned in the Options menu.
- Tactile PlayStation VR2 Controls – Touch and manipulate the universe around you with the individually tracked PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers. Feel individual bolts click beneath your finger as each is released from your Boltcaster barrel. When your Multi-Tool begins to overheat, reactive feedback begins to resist your pull on the trigger. Dramatic moments such as launching your starship vibrate your hands and headset together, placing you directly in the centre of the action.
- Smoke and Wreckage Effects – Ambient smoke and fog now surrounds colossal archives, and swirls through abandoned planetary structures. The smoking and sparking of damaged machinery and crashed freighters has been updated with atmospheric new visual effects.
- Milestone Titles – Celebrate your Journey Milestone progress with dozens of new titles available at the Appearance Modifier.
- Expanded Starship Fleets – Grow and diversify your ship collection with three additional slots, raising the maximum fleet size to twelve.
And here are the full patch notes:
Virtual Reality
- No Man’s Sky now fully supports PlayStation VR2.
- PlayStation VR2 benefits from a high-res display, as well as higher quality textures, improved particle rendering, terrain tessellation effects, increased planetary details, increased draw distances, and much more.
- Support has been added for PlayStation VR2 headset vibration.
- Support has been added for PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers, including advanced haptics and adaptive triggers.
- All virtual reality players with a higher resolution headset now benefit from a sharper UI, placed at a more comfortable default distance from their eyes.
- The virtual reality play area boundaries are now far more lenient, reducing instances of the play area warning occurring unnecessarily.
Fixed an issue that could cause shaky or inaccurate virtual reality cursor positioning over time.- Virtual reality players can now use hand controllers to position the Personal Forcefield directly, allowing for advanced combat tactics.
- Virtual reality swimming controls have been significantly improved.
- The virtual reality base building experience and UI has been significantly improved.
- The virtual reality base building menu now correctly appears as part of the wrist projector.
- When base building in virtual reality, snap-points and part previews now track the player’s head position rather than cursor.
- The virtual reality galaxy map experience and UI has been significantly improved.
- It is now possible to travel through the galactic center in virtual reality.
- Fixed a virtual reality-specific issue that could block interactions after using the galaxy map.
- The virtual reality surveying experience and UI has been significantly improved.
- Markers for objects belonging to other players are now easier to target in virtual reality.
- Fixed an issue that could cause a visual lag in Multi-Tool positioning in virtual reality.
- The projector menu on the rear of larger Multi-Tools now has a custom, more appropriate position.
- Fixed an issue that could cause custom markers to be positioned incorrectly in virtual reality.
- Fixed a rendering glitch that could occur when scanning in virtual reality with the HUD disabled.
- Fixed a clipping issue that could occur with the player’s head when entering Photo Mode in virtual reality.
- Player hands are now shown correctly in virtual reality Photo Mode.
- The “Scan” and “Change Weapon” right-hand wrist projector options are now usable inside starships and exocraft.
- With the combat auto-follow behavior engaged, players are no longer required to have their hands on the flight stick to fire starship weapons in virtual reality.
- Changing speeds in the starship now gives a small amount of vibration in virtual reality, to provide feedback that the throttle adjustment was successful.
- The ship and companion summoning UI has been improved and clarified in virtual reality.
- Fixed an issue that caused the UI to move around while interacting with creatures and companions in virtual reality.
- Fixed an issue that could cause areas of the Space Anomaly to load or unload incorrectly, based on where the virtual reality teleport preview was currently aimed.
- Virtual reality players can now adjust their jetpack direction mid-flight while the teleport preview is being aimed.
- Fixed an issue that could occur when using virtual reality teleport movement to navigate between the freighter hangar and bridge.
Wonders
- A new section has been added to the Catalogue—“Wonders.”
- The Wonders Catalogue tracks your play and records notable discoveries, planetary extremes, and unusual objects collected.
Sections include:- Planetary records, such as temperature, toxicity, highest point reached, overall hostility quotient, and so on.
- Creature records, including various size records and noteworthy environmental adaptations.
- Flora and mineral records, measured against a range of categories.
- A record of rare items with the highest market value on the galactic exchange.
- The number of times you have interacted with rare planetary glitch objects.
- Any entry in the Wonders catalogue can be selected to take you to its detailed entry in your discoveries list, allowing you to easily mark and visit its parent star system.
Gyro Controls
- Nintendo Switch and PlayStation players can now enable motion-sensor based gyro controls.
- Gyro controls allow for accurate fine-tuning of camera movements using controller motion on top of thumbstick control.
- Gyro controls can also be used to move the cursor in UI screens.
- Gyro controls can be enabled from the Motion Sensor section of the Controls options.
- A wide number of tuning options are available for players to customize their gyro experience.
Options
- The various options menus have been reworked and reorganized to accommodate a new suite of options, as well as to help players quickly navigate to whichever option they wish to change.
- Options can now be adjusted from the boot and save select screens, allowing for customization before starting a game.
- On PC, video and graphics options have been merged into one page for ease of use.
- An option has been added to allow players to set the in-game language to be different from the default system language of their device.
- An option has been added to reset your current position while aboard a freighter, to provide a safe return aboard after becoming stuck.
- An option has been added for all non-Switch platforms to use the enlarged menu text already used on the Switch.
- An option has been added to allow players to customise who has access to the contents of their refiners.
- An option has been added to remove all white flashes from the game and replace them with fades to black.
- An option has been added to allow players to adjust the strength of various hazard-related screen effects, such as visor frosting.
- An option has been added to allow players to disable all automatic “follow” camera movements in third-person.
- An option has been added to allow players to adjust the handedness of their player character in first-person mode.
- An option has been added to allow players to adjust the handedness of their player character in third-person mode and to move the character to the other side of the screen.
- An option has been added for PlayStation VR (PlayStation 4) users to use their DualShock 4 to directly control the cursor while in menus, instead of using the thumbsticks.
- A number of options have been added for virtual reality players to adjust the distance from the screen of various menu elements.
- An option has been added for virtual reality players to adjust the strength of the vignette effect deployed to reduce motion sickness.
- An option has been added to allow players to scan objects with the Analysis Visor without being required to hold down the scan button.
- An option has been added to allow players to toggle the behavior of the jump button on gamepads, so that it can be used as an alternative “Build” button while in base-building mode.
- An option has been added to allow players to swap the functions on gamepad thumbsticks, i.e. to toggle which stick is Sprint and which stick is Scan.
Rendering and Optimizations
- Dynamic Resolution Scaling has been added for PlayStation 5. This technology allows the game to maintain a consistent framerate across all scenarios, and results in a significantly improved image quality in some situations, such as during spaceflight.
- PlayStation 5 now supports AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 technology, providing high image quality and improved framerates.
- The HDR rendering system has been overhauled for all platforms for a richer and more dynamic color experience while playing on an HDR display.
- The particle rendering system has been improved to add support for high-quality additive particles.
- Introduced a significant optimization for all platforms when loading large numbers of bases within a single system.
- Introduced a significant number of memory optimizations for all platforms.
- Fixed a visual glitch with tornado rendering on Nintendo Switch.
- Fixed an Xbox-specific issue that could cause occasional flickering.
- Fixed a camera issue that could cause jittering in various anti-aliasing systems.
User Interface and Quality of Life
- A significant number of new player titles have been added, earned by progressing through various core and factional milestones.
- The maximum number of owned starships has increased from nine to twelve.
- Players can now “Quick Charge” a technology, without having to drag and drop the fuel into the selected slot. Select and drop functionality has been retained for players who wish to fine-tune the amount of charging substance used.
- Additional filters have been added to the Expedition and Twitch reward menus, accessed via the Quicksilver Synthesis Companion.
- Players can now begin an expedition at any time before the current expedition ends, rather than needing to start two days before the expedition times out.
- A variety of new cooking recipes have been added, making use of various titan worm-related products.
- The accuracy and input tracking speed of inputs on PlayStation controllers has been improved.
- The hint system for crafting components that you cannot currently afford has been improved.
- Objectives in pinned installation or crafting missions now correctly skip sections for subcomponents if the player already has enough of the parent component.
- Fixed an issue where text and highlighting in the build popup would not correctly reflect the amounts needed, if the item in question is built in multiples greater than one (such as projectile ammunition).
- Fixed an issue that caused the Personal Refiner to always show 0 as its current progress while it is being highlighted by a mission hint.
- Fixed an issue that prevented crafting highlights from working in the Multi-Tool inventory.
- Technologies are now always installed fully charged when playing on a difficulty setting that does not use up fuel.
- Fixed an issue that could prevent a base computer from being moved before it had been claimed as a base.
- Fixed an issue that could prevent Exocraft weapons from being correctly auto-selected after installation.
- Fixed an issue where an Exocraft would not become your primary selected vehicle after building its geobay.
- The Ship Launch Auto-Charger now requires a solar mirror rather than a magnetic resonator to install.
- The “Stories Learned” count in the Catalogue no longer counts every individual word of alien language as its own story.
- The selection highlights for the various collections in the Catalogue have been updated.
- The selection highlights for the various game mode options when starting a new game have been updated.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the words PREV | NEXT to become stuck on the screen after teleporting aboard a frigate.
- Fixed an issue that caused the “destructible” target icon to appear low res.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the creature icons in the Analysis Visor to appear low res.
- The icon used to indicate the presence of a biological horror has been updated.
- Fixed an issue that caused the preview of the jetpack / starship / Multi-Tool / etc. to be rotated when scrolling a scrollbar in the inventory.
- Fixed an issue that caused base parts to still be flagged as new and unseen in the base building menu despite having been built.
- Fixed an issue that caused descriptions to vanish from the base building popup panel in some circumstances.
- Fixed a visual glitch that could cause flickering lines when viewing expedition milestones.
- Fixed an issue that caused the scrollbar to be in the wrong visual state after changing from one story to another in the Collected Knowledge section of the catalogue.
- Fixed an issue that caused there to be no page count dots on the bottom of some catalogue categories.
- Fixed a large number of issues that could cause cropping text, particularly in virtual reality.
- Fixed a large number of typos and spelling errors.
- Fixed an issue that could occasionally cause some NPC dialogue boxes to be skipped over.
Bug Fixes
- The networking system for persistent interactions has been rewritten for increased stability and robustness. This fix addresses a number of issues that could cause the saved state of objects such as refiners to be reset upon entering or leaving a multiplayer session.
- Fixed an issue that prevented camera shake from applying correctly while in the vicinity of a black hole.
- Fixed a number of issues that could cause volcanoes to block access to mission critical buildings.
- Fixed a number of issues that could cause players to become stuck inside volcanoes.
- Fixed an issue that caused some planetary objects to appear low detail, even at close range.
- Fixed an issue that caused various buildable doors to fail to connect to power grids (and thus never shut).
- Fixed an issue that prevented base part variants from being duplicated.
- Fixed a rare issue that could occasionally cause freighter bases to fail to sync to other players.
- Fixed an issue that caused freighter colors and engine effects to fail to sync to other players.
- Fixed a number of issues that could cause freighter bases and freighter inventories to be lost or fail to apply correctly when examining a new freighter to purchase.
- The chat message sent to other players upon entering your base now correctly references the name of the specific base.
- Fixed an issue that prevented NPCs from navigating correctly around planetary settlements on PlayStation 4.
- Fixed a visual glitch in the starship heads up display during landing.
- Fixed an issue that caused some substances in the catalogue to offer a non-functional “Locate Substance” button.
- Fixed an issue that could cause mission markers for expedition rendezvous points to use incorrect icons after reloading a save.
- Fixed an issue that could cause duplicate entries to appear in the teleport terminus list during the tutorial.
- Fixed an issue that could occur when cancelling the discovery naming process on Switch.
- Fixed a number of Switch-specific issues that could block progress or cause incorrect mission selection near the end of some expeditions.
- Fixed an issue that could cause visual glitches in starship trails while flying in hailing formation.
- Fixed an issue that could allow virtual reality players to break the mission flow in Nexus missions by taking off too early.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the Nexus Sentinel Pillar missions to fail to find a destination system in particular circumstances.
- The amounts gained and used when refining Di-Hydrogen jelly have been adjusted for logical consistency.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the Minotaur to fail to deploy weapons correctly when under AI autopilot and equipped with a Sentinel Hardframe arm.
- The Minotaur AI will now make correct use of Bio-Mechanical Stun weaponry.
- Fixed a rare crash that could occur while deleting Exocraft race checkpoints.
- Fixed an issue that could allow starship cargo probes to continue after the ship has landed.
- Planetary rings are now correctly rendered while inside a freighter base.
- Fixed a number of navigation and AI behavior issues that could occur when biological horrors attempted to pursue the player while despawning.
- Fixed an issue that prevented some technologies from correctly appearing in the Exosuit Technology section of the catalogue.
- Fixed a visual glitch that caused NPC ship trade routes to render incorrectly in some circumstances.
- Fixed an issue that caused cape and cloth movement to lag slightly out of sync with player movement.
- Fixed a number of visual issues with the Exosuit backpack seen in the Inventory screen when wearing a cape.
- Fixed a number of visual issues with the status bar lights on the Retro jetpack unit.
- Fixed a number of visual issues with the status bar lights on the Exotic jetpack unit.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Boltcaster to use incorrect audio.-
- Fixed a rare hang related to audio playback.
- Fixed a rare audio issue that could cause incorrect environmental effects when in caves.
- Fixed a number of audio issues that prevent correct volume settings from being applied in the mode and save select menus.
- Improved the audio related to meteor impacts.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the pulse engine effects to continue to play after cancelling a pulse jump.
Missions
- All Nexus missions, including Quicksilver rewards, are now available to Nintendo Switch players.
- The “Traces of Metal” mission chain is now available to Nintendo Switch players. This story-driven mission has a number of unique rewards, including a drone companion and Sentinel-related customization options for the Minotaur.
- Introduced a significant optimization to the mission system during expeditions.
- Fixed an issue that could cause a blocker during the segment of the living ship mission where players must visit the graves of fallen Travellers.
- Fixed a number of issues that could result in duplicate living ship components being awarded.
- Fixed a number of mission issues where an incorrect number of enemies remaining was reported in the mission text.
- Fixed an issue that could cause players to miss out on some recipes while progressing through the Base Computer Archives mission chain.
- Fixed an issue that could cause a blocker in the Trace of Metal if the Sentry drone was dismissed at mission-critical moments.
- Fixed a visual issue in the log that could show Nexus mission objectives as completed before the players have left the Space Anomaly.
Utopia Expedition
- A brand new expedition, “Utopia” will begin shortly after the release of the Fractal update.
- The Utopia expedition will see players working for the mysterious Utopia Foundation as they attempt to rebuild the planets of an abandoned solar system.
- Strange goings on in the system require the shelter of a Utopia Foundation base in order to craft items or install technologies, requiring explorers to plan ahead before venturing out into the wilds, and to work together to establish a network of bases across the system.
- Rewards for assisting the Utopia Foundation in their noble efforts include a set of unique posters; a buildable holographic friend statue; an exclusive new helmet customization; an exclusive new robotic drone companion; and the brand-new Utopia Speeder class starship.
Particles
- The visual effects for portals and their interactions have been significantly improved.
- The color diversity of non-Euclid galaxies in the galaxy map has been improved.
- Damaged machinery effects have been reworked for improved quality and to match up with audio effects.
- The visual effect for breaking through a starship’s shielding system has been reworked.
- Crashed freighter atmospheric effects have been significantly improved.
- The atmospherics and other visual effects for monoliths and plaques have been significantly improved.
- Abandoned building atmospheric effects have been significantly improved.
- Door explosion visual effects have been reworked and improved.
- The visual effects for Hexaberry harvesting have been improved.
No Man’s Sky is available now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC via Steam and Microsoft Store.
Watch a new trailer below.