The Battlefield Twitter account is having some fun with its fans today, posting a meme about the forthcoming Battlefield 2042 beta and trolling fans in the process.
Using the American Chopper meme template, the tweet calls out the fact that it’s now September so the beta should be announced and detailed soon based on EA’s previous announcements. September has 30 days, so today might just be the first disappointing day of many over when the beta may begin, however, says the joke/meme. Looking at the mentions and replies to the tweet, the joke really did its job of riling up the community.
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Now Playing: Battlefield 2042 – Even More Things To Know
The Battlefield 2042 beta is scheduled to begin sometime in September, and it could be as soon as September 7, according to a report. All we know so far is that preordering the game will provide early access, but we’re still waiting to find out exactly when the beta will begin and what it will contain, among other key particulars.
Battlefield 2042 is a multiplayer-only game that has three main modes: All-Out Warfare, Portal, and Hazard Zone, the latter of which hasn’t been revealed at this stage. For more, check out GameSpot’s recent preview of the ambitious mash-up mode, Portal.
No Man’s Sky‘s last few updates have been explosive, adding tons of new features like flying pets, new multiplayer game modes, and more. However, the game’s latest update, Frontiers, could potentially have a larger impact than any other. Frontiers, which players can download now, adds a settlement system to No Man’s Sky, letting players build their own town that they can manage on an alien planet.
As of today’s update, players can find settlements across the universe. Players won’t be able to plop their own settlement down wherever they’d like, but will instead have to earn the title of Overseer at an existing one. Once they’re in change, players can start taking on the duties of a space colony mayor, which don’t sound too out-of-this-world.
Along with naming the settlement and deciding what’s built in it, the role of a town Overseer also includes sorting out all kinds of disputes. Players will have to both resolve arguments between villagers and defend the town from attacking Sentinels.
The job of an Overseer isn’t thankless either. Players who manage to keep their settlements happy and productive will earn some resources every day. Those rewards depend on a settlement’s production values though, with high-class settlements providing players with more valuable goods.
Frontiers is also giving No Man’s Sky players the tools they need to build a unique settlement or base easily. Base building has received multiple updates, including a new base building menu, placement modes, and over 250 new parts.
A full list of patch notes for the Frontiers update can be found below. Although it seems like a closer for the game as well, Frontiers won’t be the last update for No Man’s Sky, with the founder of developer Hello Games, Sean Murray, saying on Twitter, “We’re excited for what it allows us to do in the future.” Thankfully, the release of today’s update also means people can stop modding Murray’s face into the game.
No Man’s Sky update 3.6 patch notes
SETTLEMENTS
Procedurally generated planetary settlements can be now found on inhabited planets all across the universe.
Settlements are found naturally via a new mission that occurs after a small amount of post-tutorial progress.
Settlements can also be found with maps purchased from the Space Station Cartographer.
Mission Board missions that involve locating NPCs can also take players to settlements.
Players may submit their credentials to the monument at the heart of the settlement. If accepted by the citizens, they will become Overseer of the settlement and may choose its name.
Every settlement and its layout is unique. Each building is procedurally generated, using only parts available for player base building.
Settlement status can be seen and managed from the central monument. Once players have constructed their Overseer’s Office, they can also manage the settlement from the terminal in their office.
Settlements have five key stats: productivity, population, happiness, upkeep costs, and Sentinel alert level.
Improve their stats by researching new technologies, attracting new settlers to the town, constructing new buildings, setting settlement policies, and more!
Settlements where productivity is higher than its upkeep will generate valuable products for its Overseer to claim for themselves. Higher class settlements will produce more valuable goods.
Settlements can fall into debt, for example after commissioning an expensive new piece of technology. Debt is automatically repaid from surplus production. While settlements are in debt, the Overseer may not claim the extra products.
Key stat bonuses are awarded in the form of settlement features.
Strong features will replace weaker ones. Once the settlement is at the feature limit, weaker features will be awarded as stat bonuses and will not replace a better feature.
Over time, the Overseer will be called upon to make decisions. A new Settlers mission has been added to the log to help keep track of these requests. This mission will alert Overseers whenever they are required.
Every few hours, the Overseer may be requested to make a decision. These range from greeting strangers, to resolving crimes, to setting settlement policies and research goals.
These decisions will help shape your settlement into a thriving town. However, be sure to monitor the Sentinel alert level. This will rise slowly over time, and may trigger an attack on the settlement. The Overseer must be ready to defend their people!
The settlement’s citizens will wander the town according to their routines. Their mood is influenced by the overall happiness of the settlement, as well as their own reactions to your decisions.
Any settler may be inspected to glimpse a view at their current thoughts.
Other settlers will display their thoughts as they wander, allowing the Overseer an insight into the inner lives of their citizens.
Opportunities to choose a new building to construct will arise frequently. Choose which buildings to prioritise and make your settlement unique.
Once a decision has been made at the terminal in the Overseer’s Office, a construction site will be placed in the settlement. Visit the site and supply resources to fuel construction.
Completing the construction of buildings will also award stat bonuses.
BASE BUILDING
The base building menu has been replaced by a new grid of all available parts.
The grid allows a quick and easy preview of all existing parts, as well as offering quick access to part selection.
From the grid, players can select a part to place or go straight to edit mode.
In placement mode, players now have quick access to scale, colour, material and rotation options.
In placement mode, players can quickly cycle between related parts, or can return to the parts grid to choose their next construction module.
A new ‘free placement’ mode has been added. This disables snapping and allows parts to intersect with each other and still be valid to place. It also allows players to freely place parts in mid-air.
From placement mode, or direct from the parts grid, players can enter Edit mode and adjust any existing parts. Simply target the part and select the appropriate option.
From edit mode, parts can be duplicated for rapid construction.
Or, pick up a part to fine tune it before putting it back in place.
Over 250 new base building parts have been added, from decorative to structural.
Three new construction sets have been added – timber, stone, and alloy. While still versatile and easy to snap, these new sets are much higher detail and more visually diverse than the previous basic sets.
These sets replace the old wood, concrete and metal sets. The older sets are no longer available to learn, but will be kept for existing players.
Players who have already researched pieces from the old sets will be awarded parts from the new set for free. The new sets are significantly larger, so be sure to visit the Construction Research Station on the Space Anomaly to browse the full set.
The new sets are context-aware and will automatically adjust their visuals to suit their position within a building. For example, walls placed at the top of a multi-storey building may add extra trim to their tops, while walls placed at the bottom may feature extra support beams.
The Exocraft signal boosters can now locate Trade Outposts.
Fixed an issue that prevented the Galactic Trade Terminal from being placed on basic wall pieces.
The Galactic Trade Terminal no longer needs power to function in player bases.
A number of deprecated and unusable base parts have been removed from the research trees.
Signal Boosters are no longer limited to one per region.
VISUAL IMPROVEMENTS
Space skies have been significantly improved, with all-new visuals for generating nebula effects.
Visual effects across the entire game have been significantly improved – destruction, environmental, combat and much more.
The mode select screen has been updated with a new set of images from the community. Thank you to all the dedicated No Man’s Sky photographers!
Fixed an issue that caused a single black frame during a teleport.
Fixed a number of rendering issues with stars in VR.
SAVE STREAMING
The save/load system has been overhauled.
On console, each save is now treated as its own object, rather than all five save slots being bundled together.
All existing saves have been automatically backed up.
A number of crashes that could occur when saving or loading large and lengthy savegames have been fixed.
The number of possible save slots has been increased from five to fifteen. The save select screen now supports scrolling to see additional slots/start a new game.
The number of discoveries that can be saved locally without uploading has been doubled.
Any non-consumable Quicksilver rewards, such as gestures and base building parts, are no longer save slot specific and can be used across all save slots once purchased.
Cross-save Expedition rewards, Titles, and Catalogue data will now be cloud synced along with other save data.
Multiple users on the same PC and Windows login will no longer share Expedition rewards, Titles, and Catalogue data.
OTHER IMPROVEMENTS
On the Discovery screen, improved the clarity of the button that is used to register completion of all creature discoveries on a planet.
The reward for discovering all creatures on the planet has been significantly increased.
The clarity of the end-of-expedition countdown has been improved.
Season Three will begin soon, and will bring an exciting range of new rewards…
BUG FIXES
Fixed a number of mission issues related to other players discovering the target creatures/plants/minerals.
Fixed a number of issues where matchmaking with players who had adjusted their clocks would cause the Expedition to end prematurely.
Fixed a number of issues that could prevent players from landing despite the location being valid.
Fixed an issue that made it difficult to hover-select the final Expedition patch.
Fixed an issue that caused the text on the expedition start splash screen to overlap in VR.
Fixed an issue that allowed players to start a new Expedition without updating their client to the correct version.
Fixed a number of mix issues with Bytebeat and background music.
Fixed an animation issue that could occur when stroking a companion immediately before mounting them.
Fixed an issue that caused the collision detection for biological horrors to be far too small.
Fixed an issue that prevented jetpack trail names from appearing if they had not been unlocked.
Fixed a number of camera issues that could occur when using a planetary chart while inside an Exocraft.
Fixed an issue that caused some buildings and bases to be labelled incorrectly when entering them.
Fixed an issue that could cause players to take hazard damage if their hazard protection was drained but they were no longer in the active hazard.
Fixed an issue that caused some markers to have a “time to walk here” estimate despite being on another planet.
Fixed a rare crash on Xbox that could prevent players from loading into the game.
Seinfeld is set to be released in its entirety on Netflix on October 1. All 180 episodes of the classic comedy will be available worldwide on the streaming platform.
Netflix picked up the streaming rights to Seinfeld back in 2019, reportedly paying an eye-watering $500 million for five years. The series was previously available on Hulu. The deal followed the loss of two of Netflix’s most popular comedy shows–Friends and The Office–to HBO Max and Peacock respectively.
Seinfeld was created by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David and ran for nine seasons between May 1989 and July 1998. It’s widely regarded as one of the best and most influential comedies ever, and the series finale was the fourth most-watched of all time. The acerbic, observational show focused on the day-to-day life of four friends living in New York, and also starred Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards.
Both Seinfeld and Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos issued not-entirely-serious statements about the release of the show in October. Seinfeld said, “Larry and I are enormously grateful to Netflix for taking this chance on us. It takes a lot of guts to trust two schmucks who literally had zero experience in television when we made this thing. We really got carried away, I guess. I didn’t realize we made so many of them. Hope to recoup god knows how many millions it must have taken to do. But worth all the work if people like it. Crazy project.”
Sarandos’s statement reads, “This is the first time we’ve taken a risk of this nature, going all in on 9 seasons at the jump. But Jerry has created something special with this sitcom that nobody has ever done. I truly think he and Mr. David have enormous futures ahead of them and I’m thrilled Netflix could be the home for them to grow their fanbases.”
In related news, David’s follow-up show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, returns to HBO Max for its 11th season in October.
Doctor Strange, with his limitless magical potential, has always felt like one the MCU’s most dangerous wild cards, and What If’s fourth episode makes clear why. As the guardian of our reality, Strange’s cosmic perspective and access to the Time Stone has mostly been a blessing up to this point – the upcoming events of Spider-Man: No Way Home notwithstanding – but here, the consequences of Strange obsessing over his great power with no thought to the great responsibility that follows it are dire. The Sorcerer Supreme’s descent into grief-stricken madness is an effective cautionary tale about what loss can do to a person and furthers the argument that these more mature stories are What If’s bread and butter. And that ending!
Episode 4 takes the foundation of Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) mystical journey – the car accident that took his hands – and twists fate by putting Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) in the passenger seat. Strange losing the use of his hands was already an understandable motivator for his journey to Kamar-Taj in his solo film, but Christine’s death puts him in an even more desperate state of mind by the time he gets there. He’s still able to defeat Dormammu and become Sorcerer Supreme, but the Time Stone around his neck hangs heavier and heavier as Strange’s power grows.
While Strange is able to time travel back to the night of the accident, nothing he does saves Christine from dying: it’s a nexus event, or an “absolute point in time” as this episode refers to it. While our understanding of a nexus event’s importance to the MCU’s plot going forward is still growing, the concept is used wonderfully in this episode to represent the effects of tragedy, of loss so painful we’d unmake the world to reverse it. Strange’s centuries-spanning marathon of summoning monsters to absorb their power is a great illustration of this, evoking his intense focus on bargaining with Dormammu at any personal cost. With each creature (or evil garden gnome) absorbed, Strange literally becomes more of a monster. There’s an element of Gothic horror to the whole episode, with Strange positioned as both Doctors Jekyll and Frankenstein as he learns the cost of his meddlesome hubris. What If is a great vehicle for these morality plays when it can avoid dipping too much into the fan service well for easy thrills.
Cumberbatch turns in a good vocal performance, especially when Strange’s inability to save Christine is turning the screws in his mind. Rachel McAdams has a thankless role as little more than the source of Strange’s grief, but she does get time to bring some intensity to her performance in her final scene.
The episode does occasionally strain itself explaining the temporal shenanigans going on, overcomplicating the story by revealing that the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) used the power of the Dark Dimension to create two versions of Doctor Strange in the same reality. Strange being “half a man, living half a life” is distracting, an unnecessary development that feels engineered just to give us a Strange vs. Strange magic fight scene at the end. The MCU is getting a little too obsessed with these mirror grudge matches, and all the glowy ropes and portals in the multiverse fail to make the whole “you’re literally your own worst enemy” bit feel fresh. In fact, most of this episode’s strongest visual moments are the more emotionally evocative ones, like the shadows of Strange’s new horde of inner demons giving way to his new gaunt appearance. Despite the Ancient One’s distracting involvement, the story sticks its landing, taking one of the darkest turns in MCU history going into the final moments.
The totality of Evil Strange’s failure comes crashing down on him when The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) finally reveals himself, which we get a tease of earlier on when Strange hears him through whatever cosmic noise cancelling The Watcher uses to narrate to the viewer. He’s been promising he won’t interfere and, even with reality collapsing around Evil Strange, he holds true to his word. Seeing What If commit to creating a pocket universe for a single episode and then letting the hero’s choices be so devastating that they destroy that universe was incredibly gratifying, and it also gave us some important insight into The Watcher. This is the first time we’ve seen him actively ignore a character in need, instead chiding Strange for his failings. It’s an interesting development for such a dispassionate character, one who extols the importance of choice while being defined by his own apathy.
What If has the freedom to tell any kind of story that it wants, stories the live-action MCU movies may not have the courage to tackle, so ending on such a down note was an excellent reminder of the fresh possibilities that freedom allows for. Of course, there’s a Sword of Damocles hanging over every choice What If “commits” to: it’s impossible to know if any consequences are final. Sure, abandoning a corrupted Stephen Strange screaming in a collapsing reality is a bold and dark choice, but it’s also easy to picture The Watcher or some villain undoing that drama by plucking him out just to give the “Altvengers” What If is setting up someone to fight in the finale. Or to give Sacred Timeline Strange some extra madness in the multiverse to deal with once his solo sequel hits screens next year…
Like previous seasons, Destiny 2 players will have plenty of seasonal challenges to pursue for the next several months. Season of the Lost’s objectives offer plenty of variety, with each adding a new selection of challenges that reward you with gear, resources, and experience points. You won’t have to do every objective within the week that they debut either, as Destiny 2 stacks new seasonal challenges on top of older ones, giving Guardians time to pursue the tasks that they deem to be a priority.
Here’s how it works and all of the seasonal challenges available so far.
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Week 2 splits the challenges between continuing the Wayfinder Voyage quest, getting some Linear Fusion Rifle practice, and spending some time in the Iron Banner. For the Taken Eradication challenge, the Lake of Shadows strike in the EDZ and The Corrupted Strike in the Dreaming City are good sources to farm.
Tracing the Stars also continues this week, and if you’re looking for the locations of the Atlas Skews, you can check out our guide.
Wayfinder’s Voyage II
Use the Wayfinder’s Compass to complete Wayfinder’s Voyage II. Also, defeat Scorn with Grenade Launchers.
Ley Line Secrets
Align beacons and discover Trivial and Enigmatic Mysteries within the Shattered Realm.
Umbral Wayfinder II
Use Parallax Trajectory to focus Umbral Engrams at the Prismatic Recaster in the H.E.L.M. Open Wayfinder’s Troves in the Astral Alignment activity.
Astral Lancer
Defeat combatants with Linear Fusion Rifles. Combatants defeated in the Shattered Realm or Astral Alignment activities grant bonus progress.
Iron Sharpens Iron
Complete Iron Banner matches. Earn bonus progress for wins.
Drifter’s Chosen
Earn points by banking Motes, defeating Blockers, and defeating Guardians in Gambit.
The Tangled Web We Weave
On the Tangled Shore, earn progress by completing bounties, patrols, public events, and Lost Sectors.
Contender’s Delve
Complete a Lost Sector on Legend or higher.
Close-Range Calibration
Calibrate close-range weapons–Sidearms, Submachine Guns, Shotguns, and Swords–on the Tangled Shore. Bonus progress for rapidly defeating combatants.
Taken Eradication
Defeat Taken combatants in strikes. Earn bonus progress for defeating tougher combatants.
Season of the Lost Weekly Challenges – Week 1
Week 1’s challenges are focused on starting the new Wayfinder’s Voyage quest through the Astral Alignment activity, gathering Parallax Trajectory, and taking part in weekly playlist challenges. For the objective that requires taking out legions of Scorn enemies, The Hollowed Lair in the Tangled Shore is a good location to farm.
Wayfinder’s Voyage I
Use the Wayfinder’s Compass to complete Wayfinder’s Voyage I. Also, defeat Taken anywhere in the system. Powerful Taken in the Shattered Realm award more progress.
Umbral Wayfinder I
Use Parallax Trajectory to focus Umbral Engrams at the Prismatic Recaster in the H.E.L.M. Open Wayfinder’s Troves in the Astral Alignment activity.
Ascendant Ballast I
Gather Ascendant Anchors from patrol destinations and the Shattered Realm.
Ley Line Rumors
Align beacons and discover Trivial Mysteries in the Shattered Realm.
Momentum Clash
Defeat Guardians in Momentum Control. Earn bonus progress with Zone Advantage.
Dredgin’ Up Victory
Complete Gambit matches. Earn bonus progress for wins.
Challenger’s Aspiration
Complete weekly playlist challenges.
EDZ Patrol
In the EDZ, earn progress by completing bounties, patrols, public events, and Lost Sectors.
Mid-range Calibration
Calibrate mid-range weapons–Hand Cannons, Auto Rifles, Fusion Rifles, and Machine Guns–in the EDZ. Bonus Progress for rapidly defeating combatants.
Scorn Pest Control
Defeat Scorn combatants in strikes. Earn bonus progress for defeating tougher combatants.
Seasonal
Master Of All
Complete all seasonal challenges.
How Do Seasonal Challenges Work?
You can access Seasonal Challenges from the Quests tab, where they can find tasks such as eliminating Scorn with grenade launchers, farming for Parallax Trajectory, and uncovering Ley Line secrets during this season’s quest. Completing a challenge always rewards you with a significant amount of XP, and other tasks include bright dust, emblems, and weapons. Each challenge can be completed once per account, and each week will usually add around 10 new challenges which will be active for the duration of the season.
If you arrive late to the seasonal party, the good news is that there’ll still be time to wrap up any lingering tasks before the next season begins, usually from week 10 onwards during a season. Completing Season of the Lost‘s challenges will fulfill the requirements for the Master of All seasonal challenge, which in turn will net you a large Bright Dust reward that can be spent in the Eververse store on select cosmetics, emotes, and items.
There’s nothing quite like a solid strategy game. Some of the biggest names in news play strategy games, and it’s no surprise; they hone forethought and adaptability. Yet, how do they get made? If you’ve ever wanted to create a strategy game of your own, a great learning bundle has gone on sale. The Build a Strategy Game Development Bundle is now available and comes with lifetime access.
Only one payment of $40 and you’ll have lifetime access to 10 courses on the design, creation, and refinement of your very own strategy game . You’ll be developing skills to create your own game, whether for fun, a new business, or just to improve on the skills that you have. The Build A Strategy Game Development Bundle goes over all the aspects you’ll need in any groundbreaking strategy game: resource gathering, unit movement, and of course combat are covered by the instructors from Zeneva.
Zeneva has over 1,000,000 students enrolled in their world-class online programming classes. They’ve taught thousands of courses on game design and programming with coding languages like Godot, C++, HTML5, Unity, and more. Their graduates have gone on to work on their own games, satisfied with the experience gained through Zeneva. That’s why Zeneva averages 4.7/5 stars across hundreds of reviews on Facebook, Google Play, and the App Store. With Zeneva you get 24/7 on-demand access to content, certificates of completion, and a highly responsive helpline for any obstacles you run into.
Lifetime access to The Build A Strategy Game Development Bundle is only $40, and it will give you the tools that you need to get started on your strategy game design journey. If you’ve ever wanted to know what makes StarCraft, Civilization, or Command & Conquer tick, this bundle might be right up your alley.
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It might just be the beginning of September but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to start getting ready for the festive season. That’s especially true when bringing Lego into that conversation, with two sets of the annual Advent calendar series already available to order (they are shipping now). This year you’ll get to choose from both Star Wars and Marvel, or just double up if you feel like enjoying two builds every day during December. You better act fast, however, as these usually sell out well before the holidays.
Like previous years, the Star Wars version of the Advent calendar features characters and props from the series’ most recent history. This means you get two adorable minifigs of both The Mandalorian and Grogu, both sporting appropriately Christmassy attire. There’s even a holster for Baby Yoda to clip onto The Mandalorian, which is just super cute. Other notable inclusions are a miniature X-Wing, Boba Fett’s recently renamed ship, Firespray, and some speeders that are still fashionable on Tatooine.
If Marvel’s Avengers are more your speed, then you will enjoy this superhero filled alternative. This set features the same Christmas theme throughout, with characters like Thor, Spider-Man, and even Thanos doubling as the grinch with the infinity gauntlet. There are also cute versions of Avenger’s Tower, Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit room, and the Quinjet.
Both sets are available to purchase now, which will certainly test your patience from now until December. No one will judge you from just ripping it all open today.
It’s now September, and that means Xbox Game Pass subscribers are getting a fresh batch of games to play through the subscription service. It also means some games are leaving the program, and this month includes some big, notable ones. We’re rounding up all the games being added to and removed from Game Pass here.
Coming to Xbox Game Pass on September 2 is Craftopia, which is an open-world survival game that will be available across cloud, console, and PC. Also arriving that day is the RPG Final Fantasy XIII for console and PC and the narrative card game Signs of the Sojourner for cloud, console, and PC. Bossa Studios’ Surgeon Simulator 2 comes to Game Pass on September 2 as well across cloud, console, and PC.
Prepare your hard drives
Then on September 7, Xbox Game Pass welcomes the procedurally generated dungeon crawler Crown Trick for console and PC. Breathedge, a game inspired by retrofuturism and Soviet aesthetics, comes to cloud, console, and PC on September 9. Also arriving that days is the post-apocalyptic roguelike Nuclear Throne on console and PC, while the psychedelic guitar game The Artful Escape also comes out September 9 for console and PC.
In terms of games leaving Game Pass in September, there are a lot. Red Dead Online bows out on September 13, with Company of Heroes 2 exiting the program on September 15, alongside Forza Motorsport 7 (the game is being delisted everywhere), Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, and Disgaea 4. You can see a full rundown of the games coming to and leaving Game Pass in September below.
Outside of Game Pass, Microsoft has also announced the Xbox Games With Gold titles for September, and they include Warhammer: Chaosbane and Zone of the Enders: HD Collection, some of which are available to claim.
Xbox Game Pass For September 2021
Arriving September 2
Craftopia (cloud, console, PC)
Final Fantasy XIII (console, PC)
Signs of the Sojourner (cloud, console, PC)
Surgeon Simulator 2 (cloud, console, PC)
Arriving September 7
Crown Trick (console, PC)
Arriving September 7
Breathedge (cloud, console, PC)
Nuclear Thrones (console, PC)
The Artful Escape (console, PC)
Xbox Game Pass Titles Leaving September 2021
Leaving September 13
Red Dead Online (Cloud and Console)
Leaving September 15
Company of Heroes 2 (PC)
Disgaea 4 (PC)
Forza Motorsport 7 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Hotshot Racing (Cloud and Console)
The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales (Cloud and Console)
Xbox Game Pass is a subscription-based service that grants access to a wide library of games. Individual console and PC subscriptions are available for $10 per month apiece, or as a combined Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription that also includes cloud gaming and Xbox Live Gold for $15 per month. The cloud gaming beta recently expanded to PC, giving PC players access to some previously console-only games.
Frontiers, the next major update for No Man’s Sky, adds another layer of content to the game as it populates its procedural universe with bustling towns brimming with NPCs for players to interact with, explore, and even run – not to mention nebulas, expanded base building, improved combat, and more.
Hello Games has announced a range of details surrounding its free Frontiers expansion in a press release. The company says that since its launch, it has always wanted players to let players “step into the cover of a science fiction book” and that the release of the game’s new expansion brings another aspect of that into reality. Amongst other notable additions, Frontiers will allow players to find ‘living, breathing Mos Eisley type settlements’ on once-barren alien planets.
Following the update, new life will spring into the game’s procedurally generated landscape through NPC-populated settlements. Players embarking across galaxies will be able to interact with settlements and grant assistance to their residents many of whom will be harbored with their own problems.
In addition to providing citizen assistance, the Frontiers expansion will allow budding adventurers across the game to become the Overseer of a settlement. In addition to the new swanky title, becoming a Settlement Overseer will allow players a range of new in-game options.
First and foremost, settlement leaders will be able to grow their towns by constructing new buildings and accepting new inhabitants. According to Hello Games, newly formed settlements will start off as little more than a sparsely populated cluster of buildings inhabited by a small collection of NPCs. It will be the job of the town’s newly found Overseer to govern and manage the resources necessary to allow the population of the settlement to grow and become a flourishing town.
In line with the rest of the game, each settlement will be procedurally generated. This means that each community that players should happen across should be unique not only in terms of its inhabitants but also its buildings, neighborhood layout, color schemes, and both interior and exterior decorations. With the sheer size of the universe in No Man’s Sky, we’re willing to bet there will be some choice color combinations out there. Yellow and green anyone?
In addition to adding buildings to their new-found settlements, Overseers will also be able to make important policy decisions for their townsfolk going forward. Starting out as newly appointed galactic politicians, players will be able to grapple with a range of issues ranging from treasury management to town planning and conflict resolution. In the case of the latter, Hello Games says that when called upon to help resolve disagreements between settlers, “fair and compassionate judgments will result in happier citizens”. Whilst it isn’t yet clear exactly how happiness will be measured or what ramifications could result from unhappy citizens, it would certainly be an interesting twist to see a group of intergalactic NPCs surmount a revolution.
In addition to the new settlement mechanics that will feature in the Frontiers update, No Man’s Sky will feature a number of other noteworthy additions in the expansion. According to Hello Games, the studio will be making a number of improvements to base building. On top of adding new structural sets of timber, stone, and alloy pieces that will allow for a greater range of building shapes, Frontiers will also add more than a hundred new decorative parts for prospective builders. The expansion will also introduce a new HUD for placing building parts and incorporate a new free place mode which will allow players to pick up, duplicate and move parts that they’ve already placed onto the environment.
If, instead of building bases and settling down as an intergalactic Overseer, you’d rather be flying through the vast expanse of deep space causing trouble and fighting your way through anything that stands before you, Frontiers has you covered for content there too. Interstellar clouds gathering in deep space will add vivid nebulas to No Man’s Sky whilst Hello Games also notes that almost all of the game’s visual effects have been improved. In terms of combat, Frontiers should make weapons and explosions feel more powerful and add “a new visceral element to combat”.
Frontiers also brings the game’s third Expedition, called Cartographers. “The event starts all players in the same place and, as the name suggests, focuses on planetary mapping and exploration,” reads the press release. “With unique new challenges and rewards, players will need to thoroughly explore their starting world to escape the toxic atmosphere of planet Gisto Major.” One of the previous expeditions added Mass Effect’s Normandy ship into the game – here’s hoping for similar surprises here too.
Finally, the studio has also announced that it will be running another Twitch campaign for the game soon. This means that No Man’s Sky rewards will be available for players to earn by watching streamers play the game online. Despite the announcement, Hello Games hasn’t shared further specifics about its upcoming Twitch campaign at the time of writing. You an read the full Frontiers patch notes right now.
If you’d like to find out more about No Man’s Sky then why not check out our dedicated page for the game where you can read about the game’s previous expansions and more.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Originally released in 2010, Sonic Colors was an exclusive title for Nintendo’s Wii and DS consoles. This year, the fan-favorite title gets a refresh with Sonic Colors: Ultimate. Check out our PS4 gameplay (captured on PS5) of acts 1-3 of Starlight Carnival Zone. Sonic Colors: Ultimate comes to PS4, Xbox One, PC and Switch on September 7th, and September 3rd for Digital Deluxe Pre-orders.
