No Man's Sky Next is the "Biggest Update Yet," Coming to Xbox One

Hello Games has announced a new update for its open-galaxy, space exploration game. Titled, No Man's Sky NEXT, Hello Games promises that this is the biggest update for the game so far. Oh, and with the update, No Man's Sky will officially be releasing on the Xbox One and Xbox One X this summer.

"We called the update NEXT, because it's an important next step on a longer journey for us and the community," writes Hello Games founder Sean Murray. "We've been working our socks off on this and it's by far our biggest update so far."

Murray says that existing owners of No Man's Sky will receive the update for free, and that future updates for the game will continue with this model. Meanwhile, players will be able to purchase a complete version of No Man's Sky, complete with NEXT, when the update drops this summer.

A Xbox One version of the game is being published by 505 Games and will include all the previous updates as well as NEXT. That means Xbox owners can purchase a version that includes the Foundation, Pathfinder, Atlas Rises, and NEXT update. No Man's Sky will also support Xbox One X enhancements such as 4K and HDR.

Hello Games also announced a partnership with Chinese video game giant Tencent via the company's gaming platform WeGame. Hello Games says that after Atlas Rises, China is the game's second biggest region for players and that the Tencent partnership will help further support players from the country.

Murray also writes that players will notice the icon for the WARE platform in the No Man's Sky NEXT logo. No details yet on what exactly it might be, but Murray says that after the success of Waking Titan, an Alternate Reality Game that announced the Atlas Rises update, players might be expecting another ARG experience. Murray says that the team has learned a lot of lessons and that the team is working with WARE on something he hope people can play.

No Man's Sky is an ambitious, space exploration game where players can traverse large, sprawling galaxies and discover procedurally generated planets. Which means players can discover entire new planets undiscovered by any other player online with unique species and fauna.

However, upon launch there were some basic quality of life issues with the game that prevented critics from enthusiastically recommending the game to players. Our own No Man's Sky review highlighted the "terrible interface and a crushing sense of repetition," in the launch version of the game. It was to the point where disgruntled fans forced the game's subreddit to shut down.

Later updates like Atlas Rises have helped elevate the game to something closer to what was originally announced, exciting diehard fans who stuck with the game from launch. And it looks as though Hello Games is busy at work further refining and expanding the core experience.