No Man's Sky now lets you build your own new robot friends
Build a wee drone, or put an AI in your Minotaur mech!
Sandbox space sim No Man's Sky today launched yet another huge free update, this time focused on expanding and overhauling violence in numerous ways. Codenamed Sentinel, update 1.8 adds plenty of new types of Sentinel enemies to bash and adds new weapons and such. But more importantly, it lets you have new robot friends of your own by putting AI into your mech or even building your own wee drone buddy.
As the update name suggests, the Sentinel robo-enemies are a large focus. Version 1.8 adds four new types of Sentinel: Combat Drones well versed in murder, Repair Drones who help their pals, Summoner Drones who call in reinforcements, and honking great Hardframe battle mechs. Sentinel Drones should also be better at moving around the world, use a wider variety of weapons, and now deploy static energy shields. The history of the Sentinels is expanded upon in new stories and missions too.
But why focus on robo-enemies when we could have robo-friends? Completing the new Sentinel stories will let you build a wee Sentinel Drone to be your own little friend, which sounds lovely. You can also yoink Sentinel tech to upgrade your Minotaur mech, including an AI autopilot letting it follow you around and help in fights. The Minotaur is more agile now too, though I don't imagine anyone would ever pilot it themself when it could be their autonomous friend.
On the technical side, Hello Games have also added support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 and Nvidia DLAA, as well as updating Nvidia DLSS to version 2.3.0. They're prepared the game for the Steam Deck, too.
See the No Man's Sky Sentinel Update page for more info, pictures, and patch notes. New weapons! New weapon upgrades! More companions! Free rotation for building pieces! So much stuff!
Disclosure: I have a pal at Hello Games? Vague pal? Haven't seen each other or spoken in years but I still think well of him pal? I don't know. It's weird and difficult to precisely define the edges of a relationship. What do you want from me.