No Man’s Sky is getting an improved story and quick-travel portals in new update

One year after its tumultuous launch, space exploration sim No Man’s Sky is getting its third major update. Today developer Hello Games announced the “Atlas Rises” update for the game, which includes a pair of welcome enhancements. “It focuses on improving the central story,” the developer says. The update will also add the ability to quick-travel between planetary portals, a feature that’s been rumored for quite some time. As with past major updates — which added new features like land vehicles and base building — “Atlas Rises” will be free. It’ll release on both PS4 and PC some time this week.

No Man’s Sky launched last August amid a wave of hype, due in large part to the game’s sheer scale. Its procedurally generated universe offered a promised 18 quintillion planets to explore, a universe so vast that no two players’ experience would be alike. But when the final product didn’t quite meet those expectations for many players, Hello was beset by a vocal and angry fanbase and was subjected to everything from death threats to hacking attempts. Things seem to have settled down in the meantime, however, and over the past 12 months, the studio has been quietly updating No Man’s Sky in an attempt to make a game that better matches those initial expectations.

“It’s been an exciting, intense, and emotional year for us at Hello Games,” studio lead Sean Murray said in today’s update. “We have been quiet, but we have been listening intently … What we do is much more important than what we say, but since launch we have sometimes focused too much on that.”