No Man's Sky lets you adopt weird alien pets now
Tame them, adopt them and breed them like bizarre Pokémon
Giant spacey sandbox game No Man's Sky has always had weird and wonderful alien creatures hanging out on its planets, and now you can make them be your best friends. Today, Hello Games dropped the Companions Update, letting players tame, adopt and breed the game's many bizarre beasties. You can feed them, train them, and they'll even follow you around like silly little (or sometimes very big) space Pokémon.
Watching all the creatures roam around in NMS was one of the main reasons I ever bothered loading the game up, and now they can come on adventures with me! I'm absolutely delighted.
Any of the game's peculiar animals can be tamed and adopted - you just need to play with them, feed them and give them plenty of attention. Once they become your best pal, you can summon them wherever you want. And if you look after them well, they can lay eggs which you can incubate to hatch even more alien friends.
They're more than just companions though, they seem like great little helpers too. You can train your creatures to scan for resources, mark hazards, dig up treasures and loads more. They sound brilliant for people who like to play solo. Exploring the stars on your own can be a lonely affair, who wouldn't want this yellow slug-like fella tagging along?
Hello Games says that each creature has a unique personality, which influences how they behave and communicate. For example, some might be quite pleased and playful when meeting other players, while others could get hostile.
However, possibly the best part about all this is something that I think every child has wanted at some point in their life: the ability to talk to animals. You can dress your companion with a creature harness which has a neural link to your exosuit, so you can find out some of your pets' thoughts and wishes.
On top of all that, you can customise them with various accessories, play mad scientist and mix the genetic material of your eggs, and even trade rare eggs from your most prized critters with other players.
The Companion Update comes with a whole host of tweaks and improvements to the game too, and you can check them all out in the 3.2 patch notes.
We reckon No Man's Sky is one of the best space games and one the best VR games on PC. It's also now on my personal list of "best games with strange pets".