We've seen Hello Games add all kinds of crazy content to No Man's Sky over the last 10 years (!!), but today's update might take the biscuit for the feature we were least expecting to see.
The new Xeno Arena update is Pokémon. Nope, we're not joking. The latest patch adds mechanics that cover everything from creature catching to battling, training to rare hunting, all wrapped up in the No Man's Sky ecosystem. Crazy, right?
If you have played NMS for any period of time, you likely will have stumbled across a creature of two — be that a flying cow or a sentient robot — well, now you can catch, train, breed and battle them too.
New Holo Arenas will be cropping up in space stations throughout the galaxy, where you can pit your caught companions against other players or NPCs to rake in rewards. There are no electric mice or fire dragons to mention, but the creatures do have types and elemental affinities of their own, so you'll have to pay attention to which monster you're facing off against.
Daily missions and the promise of catching rare creatures for those who look deeper make the update sound like an entirely new game in itself — and there we were thinking the Hello Games team would start slowing down at some point!
Here's a handful of screenshots, so you can see the catching / battling up close:
So, there you have it! It's not the NMS expansion we had on our 2026 bingo card, but you've got to respect the dedication to the bit.