Last week, No Man’s Sky got a massive new update “doubling the variety in the game”. Called No Man’s Sky: Origins, the hefty new content drop was designed to “re-capture that feeling of those early travellers who never really knew what was over the next hill, on the next planet, in the next star system”, developer Hello Games explained – but it seems the name ‘Origins’ also has another angle alongside this: it “hints at new beginnings”.
In an interview by email, Hello Games founder Sean Murray tells us, “The main impetus behind the Origins update is to reinvigorate that sense of exploration and curiosity which has always been central to the No Man’s Sky conceit. Over the past couple of years, it has always been there in the background as we’ve added VR, improved multiplayer, introduced and finessed base-building etc, but with Origins we wanted to bring discovery back to be front and centre”.
So, as Murray explains, “The title ‘Origins’ was perfect for this update given that it harks back to where we started and reminded us why No Man’s Sky was so ground-breaking in the first place, but also hints at new beginnings”.
The dev explains that Hello Games “set out to create a universe of infinite possibilities”, and that, as the studio looks ahead to the space game’s future, it’s “sometimes useful to reset the foundation of why No Man’s Sky exists and why has such a place in so many people’s hearts as their ‘forever game'”. So, it seems Origins both returns to the action-adventure game’s roots, but also reflects a whole new era for No Man’s Sky going forward, as its “3.0 update”.
As for where it’ll go next is unclear, with Murray telling us the studio can’t yet comment on what’s next on the No Man’s Sky agenda “as it really depends on the content the team want to work on”. However, it seems possible we could see the studio explore some more sci-fi themes or tones at some point. We asked about the spooky “’70s/’80s sci-fi” tone of July’s Desolation update, and whether we might see other kinds of alternative approaches to the genre (in the then-upcoming Origins update).
“We really enjoyed Desolation,” Murray tells us, “and yes, the fact that it felt at once different to anything else we’d done in No Man’s Sky before and yet completely at home in our version of the sci-fi conceit made us realise that there were other ‘tones’ that we could explore moving forward.”
You can check out the No Man’s Sky: Origins patch notes here to find out all that’s new with the giant update. If you’re a newbie and thinking of diving in for the first time, buying it today (October 2) could help support the charity SpecialEffect, so now might be the perfect time to go for it.