Author: Trafficblast

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No Man’s Sky launched for PS4 and PC back in August 2016, and at the time it was criticised for a perceived lack of content. The game has grown since, and it gets another big update this week when true multiplayer comes to the game in the No Man’s Sky Next expansion. Part of the problem with the game was that some players felt they were promised more than what was delivered. Sony management has gone on record to say the PR strategy “wasn’t great.”

Now, the face of No Man’s Sky–designer Sean Murray–has released a message to the community in which he acknowledged that he made “mistakes.”

“Whilst I couldn’t be prouder of the team, I personally made mistakes,” Murray said in a blog post. “I could talk all day about things I personally would change. Certainly one regret is that the intensity and drama of launch left no room for communication with the community.”

Murray said the team at Hello Studios wanted to focus on “development rather than words,” which might have been part of the problem. He also pointed out that Hello Games is a very small team; there were never more than 15 people working on the game, he pointed out.

No Man’s Sky Next, which launches on July 24, is just the latest free update for the sci-fi game. It follows previously released updates such as Foundation, Pathfinder, and Atlas Rises.

The game remains immensely popular, it seems, as Murray pointed out that around 1 million people played No Man’s Sky on the day that Atlas Rises launched. Everyone who purchased the expansion played for 45 hours on average, Murray said, while 20 percent of players reached 100 hours and 5 percent passed 1000 hours. All up, people have spent more than 200 million hours playing No Man’s Sky to date.

“One day I hope to reach a point where I feel No Man’s Sky is ‘finished,’ but luckily there’s still so much more we want to do,” Murray said. “Working on NEXT feels important to us, but I know it’s not the end of the journey. We know the journey would be more fun together.”

No Man’s Sky is currently available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Niantic is rolling out another new update for Pokemon Go. The update is available now for both iOS and Android devices, and along with a handful of bug fixes and performance improvements, it introduces another new feature to the mobile game: Lucky Pokemon.

According to Niantic, some Pokemon will now become “Lucky Pokemon” when traded to another player. These special monsters will be denoted by a sparkling background, and what makes them particularly desirable is that they require less Stardust to power up, meaning players can raise the Pokemon’s Combat Power much faster than normal.

It’s unclear what other variables factor into whether or not a Pokemon you receive in a trade will become a Lucky one. However, Niantic notes that the longer a Pokemon has been sitting in a player’s storage, the higher its likelihood is of becoming a Lucky Pokemon.

In addition to Lucky Pokemon, the latest Pokemon Go update adds another incentive to send Gifts. Now, players who send Gifts to their friends will be rewarded with XP. The Gifts themselves also now have a chance of containing Stardust, in addition to their usual assortment of items (including special Eggs that hatch into Alolan forms of certain Pokemon).

Trading and Gifting were first introduced in Pokemon Go earlier this summer, along with the much-requested friends system. Players can now register each other as friends by exchanging numerical friend codes. Once registered, they can then send Gifts to other trainers on their friends list. Players can also trade Pokemon with friends, but that can only be done in-person.

A new Legendary Pokemon, Registeel, recently began appearing in Pokemon Go. Players will be able to encounter the Legendary Steel-type in Raid Battles until August 21. Niantic also recently shared details for the game’s next Community Day event, which this time takes place on two days–August 11 and 12–and features Eevee.