No Man’s Sky adventurers can get into the grim and gritty side of space travel with Wednesday’s free update, Outlaws. Outlaws focuses on the criminal underworld of No Man’s Sky, which has so far been window dressing for the space exploration game. While players can already hunt down rogue pirates, shoot up ships for loot, and sail with cargo, Outlaws gives us the tools we need to forge our own galactic crime syndicates.
Outlaws updates space combat, and introduces the first new ship class to the game in more than two years — the solar sail ship. Players will also be allowed to recruit and hire their own squadrons of wingmen. No Man’s Sky players have had settlements full of NPCs, as well as kindly characters to run frigates for us; now we’ll be able to bring our friends into combat to give us a hand.
Players will also be able to smuggle illegal goods, which comes with risk due to those pesky space authorities. Luckily, captains can now forge passports and evade cargo scans. This should make the humdrum process of heading to a port or warping around the galaxy a lot more interesting; after all, if you do the crime, the Sentinels will show up and expect you to do the time (or fall to their space lasers, probably).
Certain space stations are in Outlaw systems, which fall into conflict and are rough and rowdy places. It’s easier for players to rob other ships and get into scraps in Outlaw systems. Players will also have to protect their own people, as enemy pirate ships can also raid their settlements. Those who dig into the underworld can find pirate missions, black market technology and goods, and lots and lots of profit.
Recent No Man’s Sky updates have focused more on the planet-side aspect of the game, like adding settlements and giant sandworms. It’s interesting to see Hello Games return to space and make that element of the game deeper and more dangerous.
There are some nice quality of life updates coming with Outlaws as well, such as an auto-follow mode for space combat, and an increase in the number of ships a player may own, from six to nine.
No Man’s Sky Outlaws is out Wednesday for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X versions of the game. Hello Games is bringing its space exploration game to Nintendo Switch this summer, and the port will include all of No Man’s Sky’s existing updates.
