Of the many controversies we’ve seen in gaming over the years, the launch of Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky is arguably one of the most memorable. Though it received middling reviews from critics at the time and was disappointing for the general crowd, a very vocal minority would even go as far as harassing and threatening the developer for its shortcomings.

The Guardian spoke to the game’s creator Sean Murray in one of his first interviews since the game’s launch, and while addressing the aforementioned “angry mob”, he also admitted to many mistakes leading up to communication before release. One interesting bit is how a “very light” multiplayer was planned for launch. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be.

“A very light multiplayer was envisioned for launch and we fought right up until the end to add it, but it was immensely challenging and we knew it was something that only a handful of people would experience due to the size of the universe,” said Murray. “We later added a version of it for the Atlas Rises update, and it was nice, but not hugely impactful to people’s enjoyment. What players really wanted was the kind of multiplayer we are adding now.”

Murray also told Eurogamer in a separate interview that the developer “talked about the game way earlier than we should have.” The development team was small, and while the aspirations were there, things didn’t work out in a practical sense.

“We would go way down some routes sometimes and they wouldn’t turn out to be a good idea,” Murray said. “Other things we were fighting to get into the game until the last breath, basically. Multiplayer was one of those things. To be super clear—multiplayer at that time was the way we had talked about it.

“It was something that’d happen to people super infrequently. In play-testing it was of almost no value to the player—it was just a cool thing, a cool moment that some people would have, and we talked about it with the press that there’s this cool thing that would maybe make a story sometime. But it’s a big complicated thing for that payoff. We were fighting for it until pretty much the final hours of the game.”

With No Man’s Sky NEXT, Hello Games will be adding full multiplayer support for squads and random players. Cooperation is possible but you can also fight other players to survive. The new third-person perspective also goes hand in hand with character customization. Large space battles are also possible, in addition to building multiple bases. No Man’s Sky NEXT arrives on July 24th for PS4 and PC. The Xbox One version of the base game launches on the same day, and will receive the big update at launch. Free weekly updates with events and missions will follow post-launch.

Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky is receiving its third biggest content update today with Atlas Rises. The free update has promised story content and working Portals but there’s a lot more in store than we imagined.

Basically, Atlas Rises adds 30 hours of story content, missions that are procedurally generated, high fidelity textures and a co-op mode of sorts called Joint Exploration. Joint Exploration is interesting because you’ll see up to 16 other players exploring a planet. You can interact with them and use voice chat, thus coordinating to explore the world together if you so wish. Though limited, the studio noted that it was a first step in creating “synchronous co-op” for the game.

The update also contains a new race and will reveal more information about the Sentinels, the Gek, Atlas and much more. Features like low flight mode, new soundscapes courtesy of 65 Days of Static, freighter classes for ships and the aforementioned portals are also in-bound. The update will be going live today so check your Steam updates accordingly.

Generation

• Increased variety in weather, planet and structure names
• More base building parts have unique names
• Prevented trees spawning on sheer cliffs
• Improved object placement on slopes
• Improved grass placement and density
• Changed the default starting ship model
• Regenerated galaxy to remove differences between survival, normal and creative game modes
• Improved building distribution
• Increased distribution of heridium deposits
• Improved generation of beaches along shorelines
• Repositioned player bases to accommodate generation changes

Exploration

• Improved balance of hazards between planets
• Improved settings for hazard damage and strength
• Reduce cave hazard recharge times
• Added Shielding Shard to the starting player inventory
• Limited the depth at which buildings can spawn underwater

Gameplay

• More tech available in tech shops
• Balanced tech shop standing requirements
• Standing lights have a proper name when you interact with them
• Increased robustness of systems for locating buildings
• Increased number and types of objects which can be scanned
• Increased information available about scanned foliage and creatures
• Improved planet resource lists
• Craftable products now sorted by most recent use
• Improved differentiation of weapons
• Fixed pinning product recipes and technology guides
• Continued story unlocked through abandoned buildings
• Added interactions and dialogue options for many structures and characters
• Overhauled secondary character interactions
• Joint exploration has been introduced allowing 16 players to see visual representations of each other in game. Joint exploration does not require PS Plus, and is not currently available on GOG Galaxy.

Trade and farming

• Alloys, farm products and new gas products now form separate branches of a larger craft tree
• Added new valuable higher tier craft products
• Added new harvester to harvest atmospheric gases
• Added new trade specific products
• Added new farmable “Star Bramble” plant
• Added larger 4 plant hydroponic tray
• Increased contrast between picked and unpicked resource plants to more easily tell them apart
• Balanced priced of alloys, farm products and gases
• Improved distributions of resources on planets
• Improved scan ranges for resources on planets
• Added scan markers on more smaller plutonium crystals to aid resource gathering

Freighters

• Balanced freighter prices
• Fixed collision on freighter bridge
• Added freighter classes
• Added ability to warp in your freighter
• Fixed floating turrets on capital freighters

Space

• Improved space heavy air
• Added requirement to scan planets in order to reveal their names
• Improved planet name display as you enter orbit
• Fix for massive carve radius when mining asteroids

Galactic Map

• Updated galactic map UI
• Improved galactic map controls
• Improved star names gathered in galaxy map flythrough
• Improved distribution of different coloured stars
• Added interstellar scan events

Starships

• Added ability to summon your ship from the quick menu
• Refined ship reticules
• Added new holographic cockpit HUD elements: mini map, pulse drive warning and target ship
• Added new ship technology
• Balanced space combat
• Balanced ship weapons and technology
• Updated ship weapon projectile effects
• Updated ship hit direction markers
• Improved flare graphics on ships
• Improved loot containers dropped by AI ships
• Improved effects on damaged AI ships
• Balanced crashed ships broken slots and repair costs
• Added a more convenient swap inventory button for moving items between new/crashed ships and storage units
• Updated design of Atlas pass icons
• Added ability to look around the cockpit when landed
• Allowed player to remain in ship cockpit after landing
• Improved spawning and distribution of AI ships
• Improved ship altimeter
• Added in-ship communicator
• Added button prompt for ship zoom
• Fixed a bug where your ship could become invisible by visiting the galactic map
• Improved Pirate systems including the ability to negotiate or call in support
• Added low flight mode
• Improved landing code

UI

• Divided options menu into several pages
• Revised Journey page
• New Gek, Korvax and Vy’keen medals
• New medals for the merchant, mercenary and explorer guilds
• Revised log page
• Fixed animation on markers as they are removed
• Improved binocular UI
• Updated journey milestone icons
• Overhauled discovery log
• Added cardinal directions to compass
• Added distance markers to compass
• Fix for “redeem content” showing twice on Steam menu
• New trade and product icons
• Revised combat ship markers
• Improved ship tracking arrows when flying away from targets
• Overhauled conversation interface

Graphics

• Improved HBAO filtering around edges
• Improved TAA handling of grass blade edges
• Introduced depth of field effect during interactions
• Added LOD meshes and imposters to various props
• Fixed texturing on the buildable door
• Reduced HBAO shimmer
• Reduced shadow acne
• Fixed artifacts with imposter shadows
• Improved double-sided normals for foliage
• Improved terrain texturing and texture blending
• Improved grass colour blending and integration with terrain
• Improved grass and leaf materials
• Improved colour palettes across several biomes
• Improved planet night skies
• Fixed z-fighting on small glowing plants
• Various graphics optimisations and fixes
• Visual improvements to Atlas stations
• Replaced all terrain textures with higher detail and quality variants
• Added new higher detail foliage variants to several biomes
• Upgraded textures on several cave props

Audio

• Four new sets of soundscapes by 65 Days of Static
• Reworked space combat audio
• Reworked space explosions
• Added new ship weapon sounds
• Added weird biome soundscape
• Added new music and sound effects for story mode
• Lots of new UI sounds
• Minor mix changes and optimisations

Language

• Various minor language fixes and improvements