A spooky corvette update
No Man’s Sky now wants you to dig horrifying biological samples out of derelict wrecks and trade them to strange aliens for the parts to build a corvette that looks like a nightmare. Update 7.10, Forsaken, is Hello Games’ spooky one, and the studio released it on 28 October.
Hello Games sums it up as meeting strange traders, collecting haunting mementos, delivering mysterious packages, constructing an eerie corvette and jumping between star systems with seamless warping. It also brings the full game to iOS. Here is the trailer, then the detail.
Spooky samples in, sinister corvette modules out
The mementos are scattered through infested outposts, deep-space hulks, derelict freighters and planetary digsites, where the patch notes say they’re “buried between the bones”. Take too many and you pay for it: prolonged exposure attracts hostile boundary horrors.
Forsaken traders, summoned at space outposts, swap the mementos for corvette modules, including cockpits, habs and biomechanical hull structures. The cockpit options are Vantage, Hornet, Viper and Mantis classes, with Hornet, Viper and Mantis each offered in three variants, and there are Legion-class interiors. Hello Games says the traders also stock a living Larva Cannon Multi-Tool, bought with preserved grubs, while determined salvagers can earn a Larva Tank helmet, and dedicated memento harvesters an exosuit appearance override and the title Mind Harvester.
The courier side is a separate job. Players with a corvette and a Gravitino Coil can now take package-delivery missions from deep-space outposts, which Hello Games calls space courier contracts. It builds on the deep-space hulks and outposts introduced in the Cosmos update.
Warping straight at a star is the change we’d keep
Stars from nearby systems now show up as bright, targetable destinations in deep space, and you can fly directly to them, bypassing the Galaxy Map. If the current mission target is interstellar, the nearby star carries the mission icon. We think this is the best thing in 7.10: horror-themed corvette parts are a seasonal treat, but one fewer menu on every trip is permanent.
Two more interface changes arrive together. Multi-Tool modes can now be picked from a radial weapon select wheel instead of cycling through each one, and a Minimal HUD setting cuts the compass, hazard protection and mission notifications, and hides non-essential markers. Hello Games says the mode is aimed at experienced Travellers.
iOS joins a platform list that already includes VR
The release log lists the update for PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch 1/2, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox Game Pass and iOS. Of the iOS version, Hello Games writes: “The user interface has been built for touch from the ground up.” It also says the iOS engine is optimised for battery life and thermodynamics. Where Enshrouded’s 1.0 launch arrived as a finished product, No Man’s Sky describes itself as continuously evolving, and a phone port is a very long way to take that.
VR is still in the picture too: the game’s home page says the entire game is playable in virtual reality. Headset shoppers, meanwhile, are still waiting on Valve’s Steam Frame, which has cleared the FCC while Valve still hasn’t named a price.
Patch notes: memory work on PS4, Xbox Series and VR
The fix list is long. Hello Games lists a fix for a crash when suspending and resuming on PS4, significantly optimised texture memory on PS4, a significant memory optimisation on Xbox Series and another for VR. Off-planet bases can now be uploaded to the shared server, and the Oxygen Harvester can be built anywhere on a planetary surface, not just within a base.
Our view: iOS makes the headline, but the memory work on PS4 and VR is what suggests to us that Hello Games is still looking after the players it already has. We’d take that over another set of spooky cockpits.
