For Halloween, No Man's Sky is going full-blown cosmic horror for a fortnight

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The new No Man's Sky expedition is a space horror outing where, instead of evading space pirates and mysteriously cute aliens, the boundaries of reality are out to get you. The Cursed, which launches today, takes place at the threshold between realities in a place called the twilight realm. It looks super pretty—much prettier than the dead planets I invariably encounter when I return to the game every six months or so.

What does this mean in practice? It means creepy stuff is everywhere but also, maybe it's actually not. Because your exosuit is now fitted with an Anomaly Suppressor, which keeps you sane and thus presumably guarded from some of the worst aspects of unreality. This module needs to be maintained, and if you don't take care of it all the peaceful octopi floating around in the sky will start to lash out.

Travel is restricted too: instead of warping between star systems with hyperdrive tech you'll need to use the "ancient portal network" as you travel around the galaxy, doing the bidding of mysterious haunting voices whose motives are unclear. As far as No Man's Sky goes, it sounds like a pleasantly guided experience.

There are rewards for completing it: a bunch of decorative posters for your base, an Anomaly Seal base part, which doesn't do anything in normal No Man's Sky but looks nice, an ink-stained jetpack trail and—my favourite—a bioluminescent companion.

This is the 16th No Man's Sky expedition, and it'll run until November 7. It follows the Aquarius update which added fishing to No Man's Sky.

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Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.