No Man's Sky's latest update "stretched our engine limits" on the 9-year-old game, but Hello Games dev says it's "satisfying to see the fruits of that labour"

I've written a lot about the excellent new ships you can build thanks to the latest free No Man's Sky update, but one feature I haven't touched on is your ability to skydive out of them from low orbit. That's right, it's basically Halo ODST or Mission Impossible now. Turns out, skydiving really pushed the game to its limits, but one developer is very proud of the end result.

The new Corvette class spaceships are fully customizable. People have been making the Eye of Sauron, and several ships that have horrified Hello Games CEO Sean Murray.

But thanks to the new exit ramps and doors on these ships, they allow you to spacewalk or skydive onto a planet. It's a very cool system, one that makes you feel like a daring explorer or space pirate.

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"Skydiving stretched our engine limits, to the point that some biomes (even a few weeks before release) had drastic fps drops with the combination of a slow descent and so much of a planet in view," tweets Martin Griffiths, engineer programmer on No Man's Sky."

Griffiths writes this as a reply to a screenshot showing a player skydiving as ships fly above the surface of a mountainous planet below. The trails of their engines streak behind, creating a gorgeous image. It's a phenomenal sight to behold, and highlights even further how impressive the lack of visible loading screens between space and planets is in this nine-year-old game.

"It took the combined effort of both technical artists and coders to make this new feature so seamless, as it is now," Griffiths continues. "It's satisfying to see the fruits of that labour!"

So, next time you jump out of your Corvette and plummet planetside, take a moment to appreciate all the hard work that went into making it possible.

And while you're here, check out the best space games you can play right now.