The No Man’s Sky: Interceptor update already brings more changes to the ever-evolving game. And unlike the last patch, which mostly focused on VR improvements and quality-of-life, this one looks to have something big for every type of player. Especially if you’re looking to spice up the game’s combat.
The star of the show (at least for me) is new capital ship combat. While you could technically raid neutral freighters before, these fights were often tough without terribly tremendous rewards. Now you can fight hostile capital ships — namely the ones that Sentinels throw your way if you get into space battles.
This notably doubles as a way to shake off airborne interceptors; if you kill a Sentinel freighter, the Sentinels will retreat from space and leave you alone. As someone who tends to make the robot cops mad quite often while playing, this sounds like a huge improvement and an exciting way to go about it. You’ll also receive rewards for doing it, so there’s reason to draw attention intentionally.
Speaking of rewards: Interceptor adds a whole new category of resource and a type of planet on which you can collect it. “Corrupted” worlds are covered in purple shadow crystals that have begun to taint even the sentinels themselves. You can harvest these from the crystals themselves or fight a bunch of new spider robot enemies scattered around and loot their metal corpses.
If you’re not interested in the whole “profit” thing, Corrupted worlds also just look very pretty and fun to explore. There are also abandoned “Harmonic Camps” to find while you wander — which house puzzles, technology, and a bit of story about what all this purple stuff and the evil harvester robots are all about. Some of these new arachnid enemy types will charge you and explode on death, as well, meaning ground combat might be more challenging.
Circling back to Sentinels for a second, Corrupted worlds will also give you access to new Sentinel themed Multi-Tools. That’s not even the only new bit of technology. There’s also a brand-new quest to salvage and hijack a Sentinel interceptor of your very own. This is an entire new class of No Man’s Sky starship, mind you, so there are all sorts of different visual styles based in the procedural generation players have come to expect from the game.
Similar to the Living Ship, these also appear to have their own unique modules for players to install. Though the real prize (once again in my personal opinion) are the cockpits. They have this futuristic-y way of closing around the pilot and then turning transparent as they close. You can see what I mean for yourself in the trailer above. It’s just a very cool little cosmetic detail.
Oh, and for when you take to the skies outside your ship, there’s also a new Sentinel jetpack. It’s even got little wings on the side!
You can find a full list of the changes, additions, and general patch notes on the No Man’s Sky website as per usual. Sadly, there doesn’t appear to be any news of a new Expedition (those massive, time-limited side quests) to go with the update just yet, but presumably information on any that happen in the future will appear there as well. I’m certainly hoping so, since the story quests are always a good excuse to check out every nook and cranny of a given update. Until then, there’s still plenty of new stuff to check out!
