No Man's Sky update adds a base terrarium, complete with tiny captive alien

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It's one of the new rewards for helping out Specialist Polo's robotic vendor.

An update has arrived for No Man's Sky, providing new rewards in exchange for gathering data and materials for Specialist Polo's robo-pal, the Quicksilver Synthesis Bot. There are tier one rewards, including several plants you can decorate your base with, and a cool looking tier three helmet you can earn, but forget all that crap. The real hotness is tier two, which is a terrarium, complete with a little alien prisoner.

"The terrarium is a small observatory unit designed to house a small alien specimen for study and companionship," read the update notes. "Specimen is included with domicile. To avoid undesirable specimen-to-specimen interactions, a limit of one terrarium per base is recommended."

It certainly looks cute, that squishy little alien bouncing around in there, but let's face it: what you've got there isn't a companion but a captive. It's not fooled by the rocks and crystals and plants in that glass cage. You have not replicated its habitat. It knows it's in space-jail.

On the other hand, I don't care if it's cruel! I really want a squishy little alien in an aquarium at my base, too. It would be doubly cool if you could actually go out and collect the alien you want from some distant planet and then bring it home and stick it in your tank, but for now, any old alien prisoner will do.

I'm also unsure if the 'specimen-to-specimen interactions' line is a joke, or an actual warning. Can something really happen if you have two jailed lifeforms in close proximity? I have a feeling some brave Traveler will find out soon.

Christopher Livingston
Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.