Topic: No Man's Sky

Is it just me, or has Hello Games added more templates for the randomly generated animals in the last few updates? Recently I feel like I've come across new animal physiognomies that I've never seen in the game before. For example, last week I found a species of fish-looking creatures who fly in the sky by farting blue clouds. And you can ride in them sky even though they're only half the size of the player character, which looks really funny.

Or maybe the farting sky animals have always been there and I just haven't been lucky enough to come across them before?

I guess this is the only No Man's Sky thread here, so I thought I'd just revive it to mention that last autumn Hello Games added an AI upscaling feature (FSR2) customised for the Switch version, and an update late in 2023 made the upscaling even better. The game is visually much better than it was at launch, with a crisper image and less jaggies, better-looking textures, and better performance.

In handheld mode especially I think it's one of the most impressive looking Switch games now, on par with other "miracle ports" like Nier: Automata. I have NMS on PC too, but I rarely play it there anymore, because the Switch version is good enough for me now.

Last spring there was a period where the latest all-platform update kinda broke the Switch version for many players (not for me, thankfully) because it was too demanding for the Switch, and Hello Games got some flak because of that... But I'm glad they've since put effort into improving this port too, with things like the customised FSR2 making things better for us Switch players.

Think they will make this game perform better on Switch 2? This is one of several Switch games I want but I don't want quite enough to buy a sub-par version.

Well, Hello Games has been adding constant content updates and patches to NMS for all platforms, so if Switch 2 will have backwards compatibility, I could imagine them adding an update which would add higher-quality textures, higher FPS, etc. to accomodate for the better performance.

That said, I don't think the game as it is on Switch is really sub-par. Like I mentioned above, with the recent updates it looks about as good as the best Switch ports of other graphically demanding PC/Playstation/Xbox games. Of course your mileage may vary, but I'd say that unless you absolutely want 4K resolution and 60+ FPS, the Switch version is perfectly fine.

The only features missing from this port compared to the other platforms are multiplayer and settlements. (You can still see and visit structures, messages, signs, etc. left by other players in the Switch version, you just can't meet other player characters.) Obviously the lack of multiplayer might be a dealbreaker, though if there'll be a Switch 2 update of the game, I can't imagine Hello Games not adding it then. As for the settlements and settlement quests, they're procedurally generated and not that interesting IMO, I haven't put much effort into them in the PC version either.