No Man’s Sky begins its 16th outing with The Cursed, an “unexpectedly terrifying update” that comes to the ever-popular space game just in time for Halloween.
Developer Hello Games said The Cursed is a “strange and disturbing” gameplay event in which players “fight to maintain control of reality” while being haunted by visions and voices from another dimension. The story takes place in what is described as “a kind of twilight universe” where time can shift unexpectedly and day turns to night “at a dizzying pace.”
The Cursed introduces the fresh Boundary spaceship, the first flying saucer in No Man’s Sky. “It’s a wonderful Giger-style coil of pipes, pipes and engines,” Hello Games said. Here is the official note:
Players must protect themselves from weakening the boundaries of reality. The exoskeleton’s usual threat protection has been replaced with a specialized anomaly suppressor – maintaining this is key to survival as the universe begins to fall apart around you.
As players attempt to navigate these haunted worlds, they may come face to face with ghostly creatures that drift across the borders. Sometimes these spectral anomalies can only be observed, and sometimes they can become much more hostile… These encounters provide players with challenging fresh enemies and boss battles on a scale never seen before in No Man’s Sky.
Travelers will have no access to hyperdrive technology, meaning there will be no interference between star systems. Instead, interstellar travel requires careful planning and the utilize of an age-old network of portals.
Haunting voices penetrate from another dimension, providing clues, information, strange plans… and secrets. Players will have to decide who these voices belong to, where they come from and whether they can be trusted…
As you’d expect, The Cursed offers a bevy of exclusive, spooky rewards, including a Cthulhu-style Horror exoskeleton customization, bioluminescent pets, and the aforementioned UFO-like Boundary Herald Starship.
The expedition starts today, October 23, and will last approximately three weeks. Hello Games added that it will be releasing an update for No Man’s Sky in the coming weeks, which will take advantage of the upcoming PS5 Pro console at launch. PS5 Pro for $700 will debut on November 7.
No man’s sky was released in 2016, initially on PC and PlayStation 4, and then released on Xbox One in 2018 and on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S in 2020. The Nintendo Switch version appeared in 2022 on Over the years, Hello Games has produced a long list of major game updates that have continued to enhance player numbers.
Indeed, it’s a busy time for Hello Games, which, in addition to the update for No Man’s Sky, is working on another game, Light without fire. It’s about shared adventure, building, survival and exploration, set on a fantasy planet the size of Earth.
Wesley is the UK news editor at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Wesley can be reached at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
