No Man’s Sky’s new Adrift update puts you in an alternate galaxy without help - or other players - but at least there’s a ghostly frigate to bargain with
It’s a new turn for the multiplayer adventure game
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No Man’s Sky’s brand new update is all about struggling to survive in a lifeless universe, while making bargains with a mysterious ghostly spacecraft.
Adrift is the name of No Man’s Sky’s latest update, and it’s out today, May 29, across all platforms. The latest update for Hello Games' spacefaring odyssey weirdly puts the brakes on all the multiplayer elements of No Man’s Sky, to let players explore a desolate alternate universe without any other players, shops, characters, or spaceships.
You’ll need to navigate a broken galaxy, full of rusted and decaying buildings, feral sandworms, and strange crashed spaceships where the remnants of Travellers reside. There’s also a haunting “ghostly frigate” spaceship that you can interact and bargain with - which is sure to have some potentially disastrous consequences for players, I’m sure.
Helping you through all this is the brand new Iron Vulture Hauler spaceship, which looks like a massive craft worthy of a hard journey. No Man’s Sky just recently introduced a bounty of ship customization options, and the Adrift update is actually expanding on the offering already in the game with even more options for players to choose from.
Hello Games reveals in a press release that Adrift was meant to be No Man’s Sky’s next Expedition, but it “ballooned” into a full-on update complete with new gameplay features and rewards in tow.
Adrift honestly feels like it’s harkening back to No Man’s Sky’s launch, where promised multiplayer elements were missing, and it was a decidedly more lonely adventure than what was advertised. The spacefaring game is now light years away from the 2016 launch, with more features and improvements than I could list here, but it’s still an intriguing throwback nonetheless.
7 years into its legendary comeback, No Man’s Sky claws back another 1% on its Steam review score: “I never thought it possible, but guys we might hit ‘Very Positive’ one day.”
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Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.
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