Article Image

How to play a multiplayer game in No Man’s Sky

No Man's Sky is one of a few games on the market that allows cross-platform play. Here's how to add your friends in the game and join an epic space journey.

No Man’s Sky has finally become the game Hello Games promised. You’re able to travel to any number of planets across a vast array of galaxies to explore the universe. This game allows you to slowly (but surely) make your way from planet to planet, building bases and studying life on other planets. Although the game is very entertaining, things are always better with friends.

If you’re looking to start a whole city on a planet, playing with someone else can really help. No Man’s Sky can be fun solo, but playing with someone adds that extra layer of safety against sentinels, unforgiving terrain, and biological horrors. If you’re struggling with how to add friends to this game, you’ve come to the right place!

Let’s say you hop online at the same time as your friend. You decide: Why not play No Man’s Sky? It’s the perfect time to add other players to the game!

When you first open the game, you’ll be greeted with a chance to play either single-player or join another player’s game. If you opened your game first, hit Play Game, then jump to the next section of this guide. However, if your friend is the one who started their game, you’ll want to hit Multiplayer.

Once there, you’ll have a chance to select Host New Game — and not much else. You’ll need to wait a moment for this page to load. Once it does, your friend’s name will show up, and you’ll be able to join their game. The page after this will let you select which save point you want to start from.

If you have a friend from a different console who you want to play with, you’ll need to look at the bottom of this page. There will be an option of Show My No Man’s Sky Friend Code and Add No Man’s Sky Friend. If you find yourself playing cross-platform, you’ll need to either share your code with your friend and have them add the code in or vice versa. Once that’s done, you’ll be able to select your save and start exploring the universe.

Let’s say you have been playing for a while now. You’ve started an awesome base and have started exploring the life on this planet when your friend hops on. Adding a friend to your group isn’t only possible from the beginning. Of course, your friend could use the multiplayer option listed above. But what if they were already online? Well, there’s a way to add your friend to your game, even if both of you already started a game.

The first thing you’ll want to do is hit the Options button on your controller, then scroll over to the Options tab by using R1 or L1. Once there, select Network.

In Network, you’ll notice you’ll be able to control who gets invited to your group, who can alter bases, etc. It’s important to check this out before diving in. You wouldn’t want someone you didn’t trust to be able to build on your base.

When you’re adding friends into your game, you’ll get to this window, then select View No Man’s Sky Friend List. 

From here, a list of your friends will appear. Simply find the friend you want to add from the same platform and select them. You’ll be given two options: Either “Show Profile” (which is their console profile) or invite them. Once you invite them, you’ll be following similar steps to invite friends.

However, what if you’re looking to play with someone on a different console? If that’s the case, you’ll still want to get to this screen. At the bottom are the options of Show My No Man’s Sky Friend Code or Add No Man’s Sky Friend. In order to play cross-platform, you or your friend will need to provide a friend code, while the other will need to input it.

The last thing worth mentioning is that while you’re working on Nexus missions from the Space Anamoly, other players may join your party. Sometimes, when doing Nexus missions, other players who want to do the same mission will link up with your party, or they’ll just join for sport. If you ever need to kick someone out, simply head back into the Options screen and hit Network again. From there, on the right-hand side, you’ll see a list of the people in your party. Hover over the person you want to kick out and select their name. This should give you the option to give this person the boot. It’s not always necessary, but it’s nice to know to keep a little control over your game.

Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.

Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.

Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.

Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.

Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.