No Man's Sky goes full-on Pokémon in new creature-battling update - "This is an entire multiplayer game all of its own"

With No Man's Sky's 10th anniversary hurtling ever closer, developer Hello Games has returned with another update for its sprawling exploratory space sim, and the big addition this time around is, well, it's basically Pokémon.

Xeno Arena, as the new update is officially known, arrives today, introducing the ability for Travellers to raise, train, and battle the alien creatures they find across No Man's Sky's procedurally generated universe.

"We are huge fans of Pokémon, Palworld and pet battling in World of Warcraft," Hello Games explains in its Xeno Arena announcement. "Now when discovering a rare robotic creature in a far flung purple system planet, you can check their abilities, and for instance discover a powerful neutron blast attack. Suddenly it brings a new dimension to exploration. Rare creatures and beautiful pets become something exciting to show off in the Arena."

All this begins with the creatures themselves. Once Xeno Arena is installed, each procedurally generated species gains its own unique elemental affinities, as determined by its underlying xeno species and its home world. Rarer biomes, Hello Games notes, yield rarer creatures, and these'll be much harder to deal with during battles. Additionally, players might encounter "extraordinarily rare" legendary variants with "unusual and exceptional" stats on their travels - so they'll need to decide whether they want to share their discoveries with other players or keep them to themselves.

Either way, once players find a creature they want to add to their squad, it can be trained, bred, or even genetically modified to create new variants and unique colours. It's also possible to raise a pet's abilities over time through feeding, bonding, and sparring. And when they're finally battle-ready, No Man's Sky newly introduced holo-arenas await.

Located in Space Stations and the Nexus, holo-arenas are where players can battle their pets against friends, strangers, and NPCs for "huge" rewards. They can host tournaments of their own, too, and there's talk of ranks, leaderboards, and daily challenges Travellers can compete in for prizes. Additionally, future seasonal rewards are planned with the goal of "[keeping] that competition alive". It's a substantial enough addition, in fact, that Hello Games is calling it an "entire multiplayer game all of its own" within No Man's Sky.

Full details of No Man's Sky's Xeno Arena update can be found in Hello Games' patch notes. And it sounds like there's still more to come in this 10th anniversary year, Hello signing off with its customary, "Our journey continues."