October 29, 2018 No Man’s Sky rebuilds ocean biomes in the Abyss update.
No Man’s Sky is going to the spookiest location of all this Halloween: underwater. The Abyss update brings a renewed focus on oceanic exploration, including far more varied underwater biomes, fancier visuals, submersible vehicles, aquatic buildings, and a host of improvements to the quality, quantity, and horrifyingness of marine life forms.
You’ll now see many more underwater creatures, and they’ll be “more interesting.” Hello Games specificially notes “poisonous Jellyfish,” “snapping clams,” and “predator fish rumoured to be larger than Starships.” There’s also something known as an Abyssal Horror that should make your deep sea exploration even more intimidating.
If you want a guided experience through the new stuff, there’s a new set of missions in the Dreams of the Deep story, which has you exploring underwater crashed freighters or sunken ruins. Those are both new sorts of locations to explore, and provide their own rewards. Those can include ancient treasures and salvage, or you can even repair the sunken starships and send them back to the sky.
You can build yourself an underwater base with the new submersible building modules, or speed your exploration with a new Exocraft vehicle called the Nautilon. Once built, it can be summoned to any ocean on that planet, and also offers customisation options and upgradeable technology. You can find further details on everything in the official announcement.
The sea floor itself has been improved with new ocean biomes, and the visual improvements can be easily seen in the new trailer above. As always, this update is free to all No Man’s Sky owners, continuing an impressive path of development since the game’s rocky launch over two years ago.