No Man’s Sky’s new Outlaws update lets players go full space pirate

No Man’s Sky adventurers can get into the grim and gritty side of space travel with Wednesday’s free update, Outlaws. Outlaws examines the criminal underworld. No Man’s SkyThe space exploration game has been largely dominated by the ‘outlaws’ feature. Outlaws is a tool that allows us to create our own galactic criminal syndicates.

Outlaws updates space combat, and introduces the first new ship class to the game in more than two years — the solar sail ship. You will be able to create and hire your own squadrons. No Man’s Sky players have had settlements full of NPCs, as well as kindly characters to run frigates for us; now we’ll be able to bring our friends into combat to give us a hand.

It will be possible for players to illegally smuggle goods. This comes at the expense of those space officials. Captains can forge passports to evade cargo scanners. The mundane task of traveling to ports or warping across the galaxy should be made more exciting by this. After all, if the Sentinels catch you doing the crime, they will come looking for you and ask you to pay the price (or to fall to their space lasers).

Outlaw systems contain some space stations that are considered to be in conflict. These are often rough and rowdy. It’s easier for players to rob other ships and get into scraps in Outlaw systems. As enemy pirate vessels can attack their colonies, players will need to defend their people. Pirate missions and black market technology can all be found in the Underworld.

Most recent No Man’s SkyThe planet-side of the game has been updated more, with giant sandworms being added and settlements built. It’s interesting to see Hello Games return to space and make that element of the game deeper and more dangerous.

Outlaws offers some quality life updates such as auto-follow for space combat or an increase in how many ships players may have, which can be as high as nine.

No Man’s SkyThe PlayStation 4 and Xbox 5 versions of Outlaws are available Wednesday. Hello Games has announced that it will be bringing out its space exploration game, Outlaws, to Nintendo Switch. No Man’s Sky’s existing updates.