8 Years Later, No Man's Sky Gets One Thing Every Game Needs: Fishing

No Man’s Sky, the procedurally generated space survival game filled with thousands of planets has finally added the only worthwhile endeavor — fishing. As of today, August 5, developer Hello Games has released the Aquarius update, which doesn’t just add fishing to the game but does so with incredible depth and style. It’s just the latest in a string of major and minor fixes and additions the game has seen since its less-than-stellar launch in 2016.

The Aquarius update comes off the back of July’s Worlds update which, amongst other things, made all the space sim’s water look really damn good. Now you’ll be spending a lot more time looking out over those gorgeous watery vistas. While there were a few creatures inhabiting the waters of No Man’s Sky before, you couldn’t fish for them. The reveal trailer for Aquarius shows off just how complex the new system is—the massive world is now populated with a wider variety of fish that you can catch with a rod or traps that can be set and returned to later. You’ll craft specific bait for each catch you want and when you do catch your prize, you can use it to cook new recipes. There will be some relatively normal specimens, like jellyfish, but the trailer also teases more unique varieties, such as the Magma Shark, which is exactly what it sounds like: a shark made of lava

The Aquarius update also adds a catalog of all the game’s fish, a diving suit, and a personal fishing skiff for players. I’m also intrigued by Aquarius’s fishing expeditions, which are community competitions where you’ll try to get the biggest catch against other players.

When No Man’s Sky first released in 2016 it failed to live up to the lofty promises developer Hello Games had made prior to launch. But instead of giving up, the developer and fans stuck with it, and thanks to tons of major and minor updates over the better part of a decade, the game has transformed into one of the best space games on the market. The Aquarius update feels like a triumphant acknowledgment of how far the game has come. No Man’s Sky bringing fishing to the game adds one more pastime to the game and recognizes that after years, the world is good enough that players can just sit back and relax within it. And that’s what fishing is all about.

If you’ve never played No Man’s Sky before but the promise of fishing has piqued your interest then good news, the game is currently sixty percent off as part of Steam’s Space Exploration Fest. The sale runs until September 9.

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