Having launched VR support for No Man’s Sky (2016) back in August, Hello Games is nearly ready to launch the latest update to the open-world sandbox game, which is slated to include a mess of community requested features and bug fixes for both VR and non-VR players.

Dubbed ‘Synthesis’, the update is slated to arrive tomorrow, November 28th, on all supported platforms including PSVR, SteamVR headsets, desktop, Xbox One, and PS4.

Hello Games’ studio head Sean Murray says in a PS blog post that while the list of changes is quite large in Synthesis, that the studio is working on something “even more impactful.” Just what that will be, we’re not sure.

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new in Synthesis:

  • VR Photo Mode: see an amazing vista in PS VR? Shoot it and share it.
  • VR Creature Riding: saddle up on your favorite pet in full Virtual Reality.
  • Starship Scrapping and Upgrading: trade in unwanted ships for valuable technologies or add inventory slots to your favourite starship, or spend nanites to upgrade its class.
  • First Person Exocraft: now available to non-VR and VR players alike.
  • Multiple Multi-Tools: added the ability for players to own more than one Multi-Tool. Purchased Multi-Tools will be added to the Quick Menu for easy swapping.
  • Terrain Editor Enhancements: flatten or restore terrain at the press of a button.
  • Personal Refiner: refine materials on the go, wherever you are.
  • Multiple Outfits: save a range of custom outfits to quick change into.
  • New Technologies: long-distance inventory management; mid-air jetpack recharging; emergency warping to flee from combat.
  • New Base Parts: square is good, triangle is better!
  • Starship Space Map Enhancements: improved quality and clarity of the visuals.
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You can check out the full release notes here, which includes a comprehensive list addressing some VR specific bugs.

You’ll find No Man’s Sky on Steam (Vive, Index, Rift) and the PlayStation Store (PSVR). If you’re wondering whether or not to jump in, make sure to check out our deep dive review to find out why we gave it a [7.5/10].

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • david vincent

    Wow, that’s huge.
    “make sure to check out our deep dive review to find out why we gave it a [7.5/10].”
    Btw have the technical bugs been fixed since the review ?

  • sebrk

    What about true 360 room experience? I remember the UI and movement didnt align when rotating physically.

    Made it unplayable.

  • 3872Orcs

    Has the stability issues been fixed? And the lack of roomscale and UI that follow you when you turn in the game.

    The game has been a minor disaster since launch for us PC VR users.

    • Dave Graham

      I hate that obnoxious helmet UI lol its far too big and yeah it should be locked down below normal view to keep it out the way. Think ill give it a whirl for an hour or two later though, its been a couple of months and I havent really started the game yet.

      • namekuseijin

        hate that it’s too big too. Too intrusive to feel the immersion

        thus I often turn the HUD off. From time to time, just to have better immersion, though functionally you really need the HUD to play at all. Once you turn it on again, there’s a crapload of messages accumulated.

        and when off, if you use the scanner, it shows black rectangles all over where should be displaying info about the creatures…

        I want to like the game, but it’s so frigging glitchy this late in its software cycle…

  • iThinkMyCatIsAFlea
    • Pablo C

      still the pain, eh?

      • namekuseijin

        Sean fucked em buttholes hard

  • Rupert Jung

    Last version was not really playable for me on PC because of absolute disasterous performance, especially when flying.

  • Clownworld14

    I check this game every few months to see how its getting on. Not the polished masterpiece we all want yet tho.

  • Least

    Can’t comment on PC VR but I’m 200 hours in on PSVR and I’d say it’s seen steady but meaningful improvements in stability. At the start trying to do anything with friends was a complete lottery, now it has become – I’ll say pretty normalish. There are still issues but if you’re at all into the game they are totally livable with.

    For those talking about room scale not working because of the U.I. positioning – surely this is a seated game? You are regularly hopping in and out of your ship every minute or two, sometimes more depending on what you’re up to… I can’t imagine you’d want to fly your ship standing up; and finding an IRL chair and sitting in it will a) massively break immersion and b) bring the ship controls to eye level… I can’t see room scale being a goal for Hello games, with rather a lot of VR time spent I’d say it isn’t a fit for the game…

    • Net Shaman

      I’m playing myself like this, having a chair IRL to seat in when i a ship is not a big deal, just reset the viiew and go on.
      When outside i play standing in a roomscale way.

      • namekuseijin

        imagine a 3 hour play session standing…

        that’s a no, dawg

    • 3872Orcs

      Absolutely not. And it seems to be as I feared; the devs built this game with the PlayStation VR as the lowest common denominator. They made it work on the Playstation VR and never gave a though on the PC VR side of things. Devs was lazy and built the game to only fit old technology and practices when on the PC side we have moved on years ago. This has resulted in a terrible game on PCVR. This is not how you build VR games today. This is how developers built games for the old experimental Oculus DK2 which is very similar to how the Playstation VR work. When Playstation VR moves on to new tech you’ll see how terrible this is.

      1. Fix stability! Performance is terrible!
      2. Make it roomscale!
      3. Fix the UI!

      No excuses.

      • DjArcas

        “Performance is terrible!”

        Because it’s a game with proper AAA graphics, not a shitty toon looking game or a roon with 3 mobs in it. Get a decent rig, be patient, or go back to In Death. ;)

      • namekuseijin

        Sony gave an incentive for getting NMS, Skyrim, Borderlands and others in VR. rejoice on what you got for free or go play your Quest room scale minigames…

  • Are they fixing the networking issues on PC VR? I was hoping to play it with my friend on the last big release, but we couldn’t get a stable game together. We couldn’t share base building at all, and when he built his base near mine, his base went nuts. Also we couldn’t open chests or operate certain menus well still on the same planet together. It killed our game pretty quickly.