In keeping with seasonal mores, No Man’s Sky is jumping on the Halloween bandwagon with the planned release of a new update aptly titled The Abyss. Hello Games announced the free update in a development post over on the No Man’s Sky website late yesterday, explaining it will release next week to all players on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
In the same post, Sean Murray explains the choice of name, ‘we’ve called it The Abyss, because it focuses on some of the eerier elements of No Man’s Sky, in keeping with the theme of this season’. Other than that, no other details are provided other than a banner, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the Stranger Things logo mashed up with the Twin Peaks title screen.
Though we doubt Hello Games are planning to introduce ghouls and skeletons into the space faring exploration sim, there are plenty of disturbing creatures populating the game’s procedural-generated universes. Of which, the recently added biological horrors are prime candidates. A twist on the way they interact with players may be in store, or Hello Games may surprise us with a new batch of sci-fi inspired aberrations.
Equally, the name may also provide a clue. We may have to contend with an environmental hazard rather than overly belligerent aliens. Could The Abyss be home to the long awaited gargantuan sand worms that were seen in the initial E3 trailers many moons ago but removed from the game before launch?
As with all No Man’s Sky updates, The Abyss is free for all existing players.