One of the big features people were really excited about with No Man's Sky when it was first released, was multiplayer functionality. We were told it would support it right out of the gate, but it had nothing of the sort. That will no longer be the case after the next update though, with developer Hello Games finally adding multiplayer to the game almost two years after it was initially released.
The update is currently codenamed "Next" and will be the biggest update that No Man's Sky has yet had. As Eurogamer explains, it will add a full multiplayer experience to existing survival, exploration and base building elements which have slowly been expanded upon since the game's initial release in August 2016.
This isn't some newly tacked on multiplayer mode though. Hello Games has reportedly been testing the experience for as long as six months already, making sure that it's tight, cohesive and allows for the kind of emergent gameplay that's only possible when you drop multiple gamers into a large and expansive open world. Although No Man's Sky doesn't have everything going for it, an enormous universe is one thing it does do well.
The idea is to allow players to just about everything they can do in single player games, in multiplayer too. That will mean building collaborative bases, collecting materials, piloting space craft, dogfighting in massive space battles and a whole lot more.
The question is, is it too little too late? Gamers wanted a multiplayer mode when No Man's Sky was first released, but has too much time gone by now to really draw them back in?
Will you be giving No Man's Sky another go when the multiplayer element is added for existing owners for free on July 24?