"The darker side of the universe": No Man's Sky adds "spooky" Breach Expedition update with new solar systems as devs celebrate last big patch hitting 110,000 concurrent PC players

A screenshot shows a No Man's Sky ship cruising through a dark and foggy wasteland
(Image credit: Hello Games)

The only thing that might be able to rival the limitless majesty of outer space is the unprecedented number of game-changing patches No Man's Sky has issued since the intergalactic survival game released in 2016, turning initially middling reviews to raves. So it's unsurprising that, just over a month since Hello Games released its innovative Voyagers update, the developer is ready to keep expanding with the creepy new Breach update.

Breach is unequivocally a Halloween update and, as such, it explores how eerie the universe's infinite galaxies can be, with all their unknowable darkness. I think the update is a bit of an existential way to celebrate the fact that No Man's Sky hit an impressive 110,893 concurrent players a month ago according to SteamDB – that number is over half the game's all-time peak of 212,613, which it reached shortly after launch. But a gift marked with a skull and crossbones is still a gift.

No Man's Sky Breach Trailer - YouTube No Man's Sky Breach Trailer - YouTube
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"It leans into the thrill of custom ship assembly, space-walking, skydiving, and community spirit introduced in Voyagers," says Hello Games in an October 22 news post on its website. "In Breach, players will traverse a desolate and abandoned universe and on their travels encounter the abandoned remains of ill-fated corvette ships."

By scavenging these space wrecks, players might be able to pick up "rare vertical parts which unlock a whole new range of build configurations," says Hello Games, though the foreboding Fireship Arcadia might make you lose your stomach for creativity.

"The spooky Breach Expedition embraces the darker side of the universe," Hello Games continues, "and will also lure the bravest Travelers towards the ominous and exotic purple-star solar systems which players first glimpsed in Worlds Part II back in January."

The Expedition will last for the next three weeks, and the Breach Update is free for existing No Man's Sky players.

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Ashley Bardhan
Senior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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