No Man's Sky 4.0 Lands: Expanded Inventory, Rebalanced Design

No Man's Sky 4.0 update is finally here, and it's a big deal. In fact, Hello Games founder Sean Murray describes it as a "generational jump" for the game. However, rather than any large, all-encompassing changes, 4.0 is a sum of dozens of small shifts that add up to big differences in the game.

For example, it introduces hundreds of quality-of-life improvements. Many more aspects of the game can be customized than ever before, from crafting to basic controls. There's a new "relaxed" mode, which softens the hard edges of the game's survival mechanics in order to focus more on exploring the cosmos. There's also a handy information screen that gives returning players an update on what they were doing last time.

Probably the biggest overall change in the game comes in its revamped inventory system, which makes managing and transferring your resources a lot easier than ever before. It also makes it easier to swap out your exosuit upgrades on-the-fly depending on your current mission. For the full patch notes, check out Hello Games' website.

The Switch version of No Man's Sky came out alongside the 4.0 update, in what Murray described as a "moonshot" for the studio. There's a ship exclusive to that version, so check it out if you're interested. As a whole, however, it seems that this patch is being well-received by the No Man's Sky community, so chalk it up as a win for the space exploration game.