No Man's Sky NEXT is due Summer 2018

"It's our largest update so far, and we're working our socks off."

In the wake of its fairly sophisticated Atlas Rises update, Chris returned to No Man's Sky and found a better game that still lacked magic and mystery. The space survival sim's next venture is due at some point in "Summer 2018", is billed as its "largest update so far", is free to existing players, and is named No Man's Sky NEXT.

"Coming in Summer 2018 is No Man's Sky NEXT, a free update for PS4, PC, Xbox and WeGame. It's our largest update so far, and we're working our socks off"

"Really thanks to the community, each previous update for No Man's Sky has been more successful than the last," Murray tells us via email. "Atlas Rises, our most recent update, was surprisingly so. That represented a real inflection point in the legacy of No Man’s Sky. This team has never stopped running at sprint pace over the last few years, so perhaps it would have been tempting to stop after that. Surprisingly though it had the opposite effect on this team, and it emboldened us all to go further and faster."

In doing so Murray describes NEXT as "an important next step" in No Man's Sky's journey—one that is "far from over"—and is confident he and his team can surprise the game's community with what lies ahead. I think the following images are new, but the colours are gorgeous even if they're not:

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Besides Steam, No Man's Sky will also feature on Tencent's WeGame (formerly the Tencent Games Platform), with China forming the game's second biggest audience.

Not much to go on beyond the announcement, then, so expect more information in the coming weeks and months. And, if history has taught us anything, I wouldn't rule out an ARG between now and summertime.