No Man Sky's ridiculous redemption arc continues with pet battles
No Man's Sky has Pokémon now, because of course it does.
Remember when No Man's Sky came out eight years ago, and everyone said mean things about the launch content? I hope someone has told Hello Games that everyone forgives them for that. They just keep releasing new, free content, and don't get me wrong – that's great. But please, Hello Games. I will give you ten dollars. The latest announcement is an expansion called Xeno Arena, which is a creature battling game mode a la Pokémon.
Xeno Arena is a turn-based creature battle mode, and players can explore the universe to find the fiercest pets around. Not only can you capture alien animals for the arena, but you can breed them to create perfect stats. The game already had a pet functionality, but it was mostly there to provide a companion. I, for instance, tamed a giant bipedal chubby duck and named it Waddles. Xeno Arena expands on that system with more pets and creature-related functions.
There will be daily challenges, pet-related missions, arena ranking, and medals to unlock. Xeno Arena looks like a very cool update, joining previous additions like [takes a deep breath] frigates, expeditions, extreme planet geography, industrial waste management, fishing, scary abandoned ships, smuggling and space crime, ship creation and customization, alien anthropology, corrupted Sentinel worlds, robot companions, sandworms, and player-owned settlements.
Xeno Arena has gone live with No Man's Sky patch 6.3 as part of a free update and please, Sean Murray, let me toss you a little walking around money. He can't keep getting away with this.