No Man's Sky's latest update is an entire new Pokémon-style creature-collection and battle system that's 'an entire multiplayer game all of its own'

I'll just give it to you straight: No Man's Sky is Pokémon now. There's nothing you or I can do about it. Today's update, Xeno Arena, will let you amass a little cadre of vicious alien beasts and pit them against one another in holo-arenas, presumably to the holo-death.

"Xeno Arena lets you raise, train and battle the alien creatures found across the universe," says Hello head honcho Sean Murray. "You have everything from dinosaurs to flying cows to robots to gaseous blobs [in No Man's Sky]. We started with this thought that you can discover them and name them... but what if all that variety had a gameplay purpose? What if you could collect them, breed them, have them as pets... but also battle them?"

So now, when you stumble across a weird bit of fauna in some far-flung corner of No Man's Sky, you'll be able to assess its viability as a warbeast. That is to say, you'll be able to check out what abilities they have and see if they're useful in your quest to become the galaxy's greatest animal-battler.

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The arenas can be found in space stations and the Nexus, and Hello really makes it sound like a whole new aspect of the game you could conceivably devote the bulk of your playtime to. "Players can battle their pets against friends, strangers and NPCs for huge rewards," says Murray. "It's a genuine path for players to progress in the game, with daily challenges to compete in for ultimate rewards. This is an entire multiplayer game all of its own, with absolutely tons of depth, now existing within No Man's Sky."

Hello's wearing the Pokémon inspo on its sleeve—-different creatures will have different elemental affinities, and those will be informed by the planetary biome they evolved in. There are also super-rare creatures out there for you to find, like some kind of NMS-style Deoxys. You'll also be able to build an actual xeno arena to fight your pals in.

Creature trainers stand around a holo-arena in No Man's Sky. — (Image credit: Hello Games)

Hello also wears the Pokémon inspo on its sleeve by, well, directly acknowledging Pokémon and the world's various Poke-likes: "We are huge fans of Pokémon, Palworld and pet battling in World of Warcraft."

It all sounds like an excellent idea, to me. I'm not a survival game guy and NMS has never quite managed to ensnare me, but the notion of dedicating my life to collecting rare shinies? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't very tempted.

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One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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