Weird Fleshy Ships Have Been Added to No Man's Sky

Fans of No Man's Sky who like to live their space explorer lives on the bleeding edge can opt in to "experimental" updates where Hello Games tests new fixes and features that aren't quite ready for prime-time. These updates are usually accompanied by exhaustive patch notes, but it appears that Hello left some things out from today's notes on purpose: namely, the arrival of some very odd looking living spaceships.

No Man's Sky players on the PC experimental branch were quick to spot what they're calling "egg ships" upon loading up today's new update. At least one player has purchased an egg ship and, in terms of function, it looks like they work identically to any other small ship you can fly in No Man's Sky.

Your knowledge of pulse engines and hyperdrives won't transfer over so cleanly, however—the egg ship's inventory space is divided between storage sacs and an organ chamber, where you can configure vital, disturbingly named components like a "pulsing heart" and "spewing vents."

Yesterday, Hello Games founder Sean Murray tweeted out what looks like old-fashioned biological illustrations that feature an outline of an egg and a close match for the new ships players have found. The egg hints didn't stop there: Murray also posted the infamously confounding "three-day blue egg" video that went viral last year. Judging by Murray's coyness, it seems Hello Games wants the No Man's Sky community to start piecing together what these spaceships and all this talk of eggs means, rather than serve them up an answer on a platter.

So far, players have also uncovered a few other things that seem to be related to the egg mystery and which went unmentioned in the patch notes. It seems these new usable ships might not be the only living things that are hanging out off-planet in No Man's Sky's universe now, and streamer Bruce Cooper has also come across destroyed freighters and a "secret listening post" hiding out on an asteroid.

Hopefully, all No Man's Sky players will be able to unravel these mysteries for themselves once the update leaves the experimental branch. Until then, patient PC players and those on Xbox One or PS4 can keep on making tracks with No Man's Sky's "ByteBeat," an absurdly feature-rich music making tool Hello Games added in December.

Thanks, Twinfinite.