It barely seems like yesterday I was writing it barely seems like yesterday since we last had a No Man’s Sky update, but here I am doing it again as Hello Games’ exploratory space sim ushers in cross-save support, PS5 Pro enhancements, and even the return of Mass Effect’s Normandy.
All this comes via No Man’s Sky’s latest update (the sixth this year, if you’re counting, after October’s The Cursed update), which begins with a feature “years” in the making: cross-save. Starting today, cross-save is available alongside cross-play for all platforms – including PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Steam Deck, PSVR VR 1 & 2, and PC VR – meaning players can pick up from where they left off regardless of which machines they’re hopping between.
Hello Games says introducing the feature has been “especially difficult” given the range of platforms its catering for and the age of saves some players are still using. “It’s very common for players to rack up thousands of hours of… incredibly detailed saves,” it explains. “Adding cross-save for us is a little bit like moving house, the longer people have lived there, the more complicated it is to move them! We also have players who played once at launch, eight years ago, suddenly loading up that save on a platform that didn’t even exist back then!”
As such, Hello Games is taking a cautious approach to cross-save and rolling out the feature gradually. Starting today, all players can link their various platform accounts together via the No Man’s Sky website, and a “subset of players” will be able to access cross-saves initially. “In the coming weeks,” the studio adds, “all players will be invited to do so.”