No Man’s Sky is seven years old and its next update is called Echoes

It has now been seven years since No Man’s Sky released, which means there have been seven years of post-release updates. In a trailer released to celebrate the anniversary, Hello Games teased the next update by giving it a name: Echoes.

There’s no further information about what the update will contain, although a tweet about the trailer did underline just how many updates there have been for No Man’s Sky by listing them all.

No Man’s Sky launched not as an incomplete game, but as one that focused on solo interplanetary exploration and resource gathering in a largely empty universe. It wasn’t the game people wanted – or the one they felt they’d been sold in trailers and developer interviews. (This problem would have been solved if more people read my preview when the game was announced.) (We enjoyed it at launch anyway.)

That core loop (land on planet, zap and scan stuff, gather resources, fly to new planet) is still present, but No Man’s Sky’s updates have broadened and deepened the experience almost beyond recognition. There’s multiplayer now, and base-building, and mechs, and flying creatures, and a better story, and seasonal challenges, and even giant sandworms. Hello Games continuing to add more to the game only makes sense, given it’s still being played by thousands of people on Steam at any given moment.

Hello Games’ last new game was 2021’s short puzzle-adventure The Last Campfire. As good as it apparently was, I hope they one day make another game as madly ambitious as No Man’s Sky.

(As I was writing this post, my Spotify playlist threw up this fittingly named song, so now you can have it.)