No Man's Sky Companions Update Gives You A Spacefaring Travel Buddy

Ever since launch, one of the cornerstones of No Man's Sky has been the strange fauna that you encounter on most of the planets you visit. Players are almost certain to come across unique looking alien lifeforms as they make their way through the universe, but up until now, interaction with them was mostly limited to scanning them to add their data to your encyclopedia. That all changes today with the arrival of No Man's Sky's first content update for 2021, dubbed Companions.

As the name suggests, the Companions update allows you to tame the alien lifeforms you encounter and turn them into your pets. It sounds like you can tame any lifeform you come across, no matter how big or small, and once they've been tamed, a number of new gameplay options will open up.

For instance, in a blog post describing the Companions update, No Man's Sky developer Hello Games says companions will travel alongside players as they visit planets and space stations. Pets have a wide array of abilities, as they can be trained to "scan for resources, mark out hazards, provide light, hunt dangerous fauna, find settlements, excavate buried treasure or even mine for materials with their own shoulder-mounted mining lasers." They'll even have a neural harness that will display what they're thinking on your HUD.

Beyond taming and training these beasts, you'll also be able to breed well-nurtured companions. Companions who have been particularly well cared for will lay eggs that can then be hatched or given to other players, and Hello Games says you can even dive into egg sequencing aboard the Space Anomaly to change the creature's species before it hatches.

So, if you No Man's Sky fans have wanted more options for interaction with the alien life you encounter as you play, this update is for you. Full patch notes can be found over on the No Man's Sky website, but otherwise, the update is live today across all of No Man's Sky platforms – PS4, PS5, PC, Steam VR, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.