No Man’s Sky Goes All In On Star Trek Fantasy With New Ships

Speculate no more! Hello Games revealed the next addition to the ever-expanding universe of No Man’s Sky. It’s called Endurance, and it’s loaded with additions to space (space biome?) and brings the thrills of taking charge of a fleet of starships to your screen. While past updates have broadened the selection of ships in the game, this one will allow you to live in and explore your ships on a wider scale, taking in the galactic voxel-based vistas from windows and portholes as you chart your next voyage or take on the update’s new expedition “Polestar.” You can check out the trailer here.

Endurance is the latest in a series of updates that have dramatically improved No Man’s Sky’s standing with gamers over the last six years. It comes shortly after the announcement of its upcoming Nintendo Switch port, due out this October. The game’s roots have always taken inspiration from classic science fiction tropes, and this latest update takes cues from the likes of Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek, aiming to deliver the thrills of piloting a massive ship to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go…okay I’ll stop.

Endurance promises a “complete overhaul of freighters and fleets,” according to the trailer. This update is all about letting you experience daily life aboard a massive starship, joined by your crew, ready to take on new voyages and space battles. Ships will receive an entirely new bridge section, as well as exterior walkways to gaze at the heavens above. New areas have been designed for this experience; asteroids have seen a dramatic change: they’re getting more variation with thousands of them appearing at once. You can see from the trailer that they’re not only far more varied and aesthetically pleasing, but they also help sell the scale of this game. The update is also expected to include black holes, nebulae, and other cool space phenomena.

At the beginning of the week, Hello Games founder Sean Murray, as he is wont to do, teased No Man’s Sky fans with a single strong-arm emoji and a picture of every major NMS update to date, with one space left mysteriously blank. As is to be expected, speculation on Twitter and Reddit went wild, but it’s clear now that the display of strength via that emoji was a reference to the updatetitle.

Endurance comes with a new expedition. “Polestar,” is based on a “capital ship voyage,” according to Murray, and will have some combat missions as well as a Twitch Drops campaign.

It’s striking how much diversity is in this update. No Man’s Sky has become a little challenging to describe to new players. It’s definitely a survival/exploration game—on a galactic scale at that. But honestly? This game is just a perfect end-of-the-day jam to chill with. So while the epic-scale space fights are definitely tempting, I’m content to just hang out on a ship and stare off at planets knowing, “Yeah, I could land there. No big deal.” Maybe I’ll build a greenhouse or something.

Endurance is available now for every version of No Man’s Sky.