Hello Games has announced the No Man’s Sky Frontiers update is now available, adding new procedurally generated alien towns, better base building, and more.

Here’s a new trailer for the update:

Here’s a rundown on the update:

Become Overseer of your very own procedurally generated alien settlement in update 3.6, FRONTIERS. Make choices, guide your citizens, develop new structures and defend your people from the Sentinels. Or, take advantage of a massive overhaul of base building to construct your own dream base.

PLANETARY SETTLEMENTS

Clusters of trailblazing aliens have banded together to build planetary settlements. These pioneering settlements, full of life and promise, can now be found in inhabited systems all across the universe.

FOUND YOUR OWN SETTLEMENT

Earn the respect of the citizens to become overseer of your very own settlement. As overseer, you’ll be responsible for all aspects of the settler’s lives – naming the town, choosing what to build, commissioning festivals, resolving arguments, repelling the attacks of the Sentinels, and much more.

BREATHTAKING NEBULAS

Interstellar clouds have gathered in deep space to form spectacular multi-coloured nebulas, making space skies more beautiful than ever.

BASE BUILDING GRID MENU

The base building menu has been totally overhauled. Parts are now laid out in a clear grid, allowing fast access to even the rarest of parts.

As well as speed, this overview allows players to see the full range of available parts, helping bring diversity and interest to your builds.

EACH SETTLEMENT UNIQUE

Every settlement is procedurally generated, with unique buildings, neighbourhood layouts, colour schemes, and interior and exterior decoration.

MORE SAVE SLOTS

A new save streaming system has been implemented, making more efficient use of memory. Very large saves are now supported, allowing for thousands of hours of play.

The number of possible save slots has been increased from 5 to 15, and the save select screen now supports scrolling.

As this new save system changes the format of save data, all existing saves have been automatically backed up. On PC, these may be found under the new strbackup folder within your save directory, usually in C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\HelloGames\NMS\

ENHANCED DESTRUCTION EFFECTS

Destruction is crunchier and more satisfying, with reworked visual effects for asteroid destruction, Exocraft crashes, crystal mining, terrain editing, and enemy explosions.

HELP SETTLEMENTS GROW

Settlements start off small and modest, with a sparse population and only a few buildings scattered around their town centre. Choose what to build and provide resources to construct new buildings and transform this ramshackle collection of dwellings into a flourishing town!

Different building types influence how your settlement grows. Build farms and factories to increase productivity, or choose to prioritise the comfort and leisure of your citizens with a more relaxed approach to frontier life.

HUNDREDS OF NEW BASE PARTS

Construct your own settlement-inspired bases with a huge array of new base parts. These detailed, high-definition parts are quick and easy to snap together, and yet produce a huge diversity of exciting sci-fi buildings. These new structural sets of timber, stone and alloy pieces create a tremendous range of possible building shapes.

Over a hundred new decorative parts create all-new ways to add personal character to bases.

STEAM TRADING CARDS AND BADGES

Playing No Man’s Sky on Steam will now earn trading card drops, with a total of 15 cards available.

Collect trading cards to craft badges, and earn emoticons and backgrounds for your Steam profile.

DEFEND SETTLEMENTS FROM SENTINELS

Sentinels regard all pockets of civilisation with hostility, and as time passes, a prosperous settlement will inevitably draw sentinel attention. Research defensive buildings to keep the alert level low, or engage attacking drones in combat!

Combat effects – impacts, player weapon effects, Sentinel effects and more – have had a visual overhaul, creating a more dramatic and impactful experience for those who choose to take the fight to the Sentinels.

MORE SAVED DISCOVERIES

The number of discoveries that can be saved locally before uploading has been doubled.

SETTLER THOUGHTS

Glimpse into the inner lives of settlers with insight into their thoughts and intentions as they go about their daily business.

TWITCH CAMPAIGN

No Man’s Sky in-game rewards will soon be available to earn by watching streamers play the game on Twitch. Full details of how to sign up are available on the Twitch Drops page here.

The campaign will reward viewers with an exciting new set of items, including unique appearance customisations, base parts, exclusive companions, ships and more.

STREAMLINED BUILDING INTERFACE

The building UI has been totally overhauled. In placement mode, this new contextual menu allows quick access to scale, rotation and recolouring options. In the brand-new edit mode, builders can quickly select and edit any existing pieces in-place, without having to delete or replace them.

RESOLVE CITIZEN DISPUTES

Settlement life is not always harmonious! As overseer, you will occasionally be called upon to help resolve disagreements between settlers. Do your best to be a fair and compassionate judge, or cast blame widely and use the fines to boost the settlement’s finances – the choice is yours.

EARN RESOURCES FROM YOUR SETTLEMENT

A highly productive settlement can generate a steady income of lucrative products and substances. A populous, happy, and productive settlement will provide a generous supply of resources to its overseer every day.

ENHANCED ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

Visual effects have been improved across planetary environments. Dust kicked up by Exocraft, Walkers, starships and radioactive vents now whorls with more depth and character, and fireflies will gather around the street lamps in settlements.

ADVANCED BUILDING CONTROLS

The basebuilding toolset has been expanded with several advanced controls. Free placement mode disables all forms of snapping, and allows parts to be placed inside other parts. This advanced mode allows builders to place parts wherever they choose – even in mid-air!

In addition, the ability to duplicate base parts makes it simple to quickly match your base’s existing style.

MOVE BASE PARTS

Re-architecting and renovating your bases is now easier than ever before, with the ability to pick up and move previously-constructed base parts.

MAKE IMPORTANT DECISIONS

Every settlement has a unique set of features, influencing the population, happiness, and productivity of its citizens. Keep these stats balanced to ensure a smoothly functioning society.

Under the governance of a thoughtful and benevolent overseer, a settlement may be able to rid itself of undesirable features such as radioactivity or parasitic eggs, and acquire desirable features such as well-educated citizens, or plentiful nanobots.

ENHANCED MULTI-TOOL EFFECTS

Wield a more impressive Multi-tool with revamped visual effects – the impacts and trails for the Boltcaster, Blaze Javelin, Scatter Blaster, Pulse Spitter, Plasma Grenade and Mining Beam have all been given a new breath of life.

CONTEXTUAL BASE PARTS

Structural base parts such as walls, windows and arches will now intelligently select an appropriate variation – foundation, mid or top – for their position within a structure, making it quick and easy to construct aesthetically pleasing and highly varied bases.

GREET VISITORS

Settlements attract visitors, and visiting aliens may request to join your settlement, both increasing and enhancing your population with their unique specialist skills.

SETTLEMENT INTERIORS

Settlements are composed of an assortment of building types – in addition to the Overseer’s Office, you will encounter habitations, factories, farmhouses, cafes and more. Every building is appropriately and uniquely furnished – with tables, chairs, crockery, lighting, storage, wall art, rugs, machinery, and much more.

EXTENDED CLOUD SAVING

Account-wide data such as cross-save Expedition rewards are now cloud synced, allowing access to these items across multiple systems when transferring save data via Steam Cloud or PlayStation Plus.

All non-consumable Quicksilver purchases, such as gestures and base building parts, are now treated as account-wide data rather than tied to a specific save slot.

NEW EXPEDITION SEASON

Expedition Three: Cartographers begins soon.

This community adventure has a different feeling from previous expeditions. Travellers will begin their journey with a technologically unique starship, featuring an advanced waveform engine and powerful frameshift catapult. Preparing this bespoke ship for flight is a specialised process, and travellers will need to thoroughly explore their starting world to escape the toxic atmosphere of planet Gisto Major.

As with previous expeditions, when the expedition time is up, you will have the option of converting your save data to a Normal mode save.

MONSTROUS COMPANIONS

The Cartographers expedition will allow travellers to earn a fertile monstrosity egg, which may be hatched into a monstrous companion. Monstrosities have a different voice when communicating, and their own unique set of personality characteristics.

While the No Man’s Sky Frontiers update is now available, the game’s most recent update, Prisms, adding lots of visual improvements to the game like reflections, fur, refractions, better rain and weather, and more – read more about that here in our previous report.

No Man’s Sky is currently available for Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X+S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.