No Man’s Sky Update Adds Funky-Looking ‘Living Ships’

The spaceship-stuffed game No Man’s Sky is continuing its trajectory from shaky launch to really interesting piece of work, with the latest update to the space-exploration experience adding funky biological spaceships into the mixer.

The game’s previous big update, No Man’s Sky Beyond, launched in August 2019 and added a multiplayer mode. And now, going live today, a big drop of new content called ‘The Living Ship Update’ is adding a whole new level of lore to the game with a fresh sort of craft. As the official announcement on the PlayStation blog explains, “The Living Ship Update introduces the first new starship since Atlas Rises. But this is more than just a ship — these are strange and beautiful creatures with lives of their own.”

Players are invited to take flight in what PlayStation describes as “beautiful, organic, slightly psychedelic ships [that] are uniquely grown (and, as with everything in the No Man’s Sky universe, procedurally-generated).” And if you’re wondering what you’ll be able to do with these ships, the statement mentions that they “can’t be upgraded in the same way as a traditional ship: each one is individually hatched, with a unique set of internal organs that determines its abilities. If you want a fast hyperdrive, you’ll need to nurture the right sort of life within your ship…”

All of this sounds pretty interesting, doesn’t it? It’s exactly the sort of tech-meets-nature twist that will appeal to a certain sort of sci-fi fan. And if you fancy having a look at these ‘living ships’ in action before you try them out, take a look at this official video…

“As much attention has been given to the interior of the ships as the exterior,” we’re told by the aforementioned blog post. “Void ships house you within strange, organic cockpits, requiring players to fly their ship by grasping vein-covered tendrils. It looks and feels suitably unsettling to fly in VR!”

And if you’re wondering how to get involved with these new ships, the PlayStation blog offers these insights: “A new series of missions will take players through the ancient Korvax experiments that led to the birth of these interstellar beings. Players who wish to incubate, grow, and ultimately fly their own living ship should visit the Space Anomaly and follow the call of the Void Egg.”

That doesn’t sound ominous at all. Who wouldn’t want to follow the call of a Void Egg? At the very least, it’s something to do while we wait for the developer’s next game. And at the very best, this could be further proof that No Man’s Sky has evolved into something really interesting.