No Man's Sky update 5.03 released

No Man's Sky, one of the most popular sci-fi exploration video games, was released in 2016 and went through numerous changes afterwards — has had dozens of big patches and updates, letting the game metamorphose into a marvellous display of what a successful video game comeback story can turn into.

However, the No Man's Sky update 5.03 is live, which includes over 60 bug fixes amongst many other improvements, seriously targeting visual woes, revising the companion registry, and bringing into the fold the platform-specific optimisations for the Switch and Xbox ports.

What's new in No Man's Sky update 5.03?

No Mans’s Sky update 5.03 is full of exciting changes. Among the changes are visual bugs and improvements geared toward further players into its stunning galaxy.

Another one is related to the companion registry, which gets a user interface overhaul, allowing players to easily handle their companions. Apart from that, several quality-of-life improvements have been made, such as updating the summoning position of the pirate dreadnought freighter for smoother navigation.

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In addition, it has added platform-specific performance optimisations on the Nintendo Switch and Xbox versions so that the experience in gaming will be seamless.

Last but not least, some issues in the No Man’s Sky update list have been resolved —like the infinite loading screen — and water rendering glitches on Xbox, and quality improvement for particle rendering on PSVR2 for further realism and immersion.

No Man's Sky update 5.03 availability

The update is currently available for PC, with console versions to follow soon. No Man's Sky has seen a massive player spike on PC, with daily concurrent player peaks reaching over 50,000 players in mid-July 2024.

No Man's Sky Update 5.03 patch notes

General bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue that made it difficult to rotate the model of the starship or backpack on the Inventory page.
• Applied some minor polish to the companion register UI to make it clear there are more than 6 available slots.
• Fixed an issue that caused the wrong control glyph to be suggested when reporting bases.
• Improved the summoning position of the pirate dreadnought freighter to make it easier to fly into.
• Fixed several issues that caused inapplicable markings options to appear when customising some player appearance settings.
• Fixed a rare issue that could cause walls to be missing from some planetary buildings in Gek-dominated systems.
• Fixed an issue that could label Solar-class starships as Fighters in the Starship Fabricator.
• Fixed an issue that could cause two brood mothers to appear in the same position when killing juicy grubs.
• Fixed several minor text issues.
• Fixed an issue that could result in the Minotaur falling through the surface of the planet when loading a save.
• Fixed an issue that prevents the Minotaur’s stun cannon from working correctly.
• Fixed an issue that caused the hostile security drones on derelict freighters to become stuck in the ceiling.
• Fixed an issue that could make it difficult to summon starships to the exact correct position on the water.
• Fixed a rare issue that could prevent progress on the tutorial by preventing warp to the target system.
• Fixed an issue that could result in incorrect counts on the Wonders catalogue.
• Fixed an issue that could leave lingering echoes of old ships in the Quick Menu after salvaging a ship.
• Fixed an issue that caused existing freighter bases to fail to properly snap together, causing corridors and doors to turn into walls.
• Fixed a rare issue that could block the hand-in of Nexus missions.
• Fixed the issue where the Multi-Tool was visible in Photo Mode when the player was using the first-person camera.
• Improved a number of the graphics setting descriptions in the options menu.
• Fixed several UI rendering issues.
• Fixed an issue that could cause some settlements to fail to appear during building generation.

Mission fixes

• Fixed an issue that could prevent mission progress in the Metamorphosis milestone in the Liquidator’s Expedition.
• Fixed an issue that could incorrectly report the player’s inventory as full an prevent redemption of the rewards for the Infestation Beta milestone in the Liquidator’s Expedition.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent mission progress in the various Infestation Site milestones in the Liquidator’s Expedition.
• Fixed an issue with the ‘Fire in the Hole’ milestone in the Liquidator’s expedition.
• Fixed an issue with the ‘Blood in the Water’ milestone in the Liquidator’s expedition.
• Fixed several balance issues in the Liquidator’s expedition.

Visual fixes

• Fixed several visual issues with the Liquidator mech.
• Fixed several visual issues with scorched world props.
• Fixed several visual issues with frozen world props.
• Fixed several visual issues with radioactive world props.
• Fixed several visual issues with plant/animal hybrid creatures.
• Fixed several visual issues with barren world props.
• Fixed several visual issues that could occur when killing walking buildings.
• Fixed several visual issues that could occur when killing jellyfish.
• Fixed several visual issues that occur when shooting creatures.
• Improved the visual effects for damaged starships.
• Improved the visual effects when shooting brood mothers.
• Fixed several visual issues with refractions in the starship cockpit.
• Fixed several LODing issues with floating islands.
• Fixed several animation issues with walking buildings.
• Fixed several animation issues with hostile bugs.
• Improved the ambient visual effects on extreme firestorm worlds.
• Fixed several visual issues with the Minotaur cockpit.
• Fixed several general animation issues that caused exaggerated bending.
• Fixed an issue that caused foliage rendering to become corrupted.
• Fixed several visual issues with water rendering.
• Fixed several visual issues with wind.
• Improved the quality of water rendering on consoles.

Audio fixes

• Fixed some audio issues with the Minotaur’s flamethrower.
• Improved the ambient audio on floating islands.
• GPU-related improvements
• Fixed some issues related to DLSS3 and FrameGen.
• Added a VR optimisation for AMD graphics cards.

Stability fixes

• Fixed a crash related to terrain generation.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when reloading saves.
• Fixed a crash related to loading Exocraft.
• Fixed a crash related to texture rendering.
• Fixed a crash related to loading discoveries.
• Fixed a hang related to planetary rendering.
• Fixed a VR-specific crash.

Xbox fixes

• Introduced several Xbox-specific performance optimisations.
• Fixed an issue that could cause an infinite load when starting the game on Xbox.
• Fixed a visual glitch with water rendering on Xbox.

Nintendo Switch fixes

• Fixed a Switch-only issue that makes it difficult to interact with the base Scientist’s terminal.
• Added several memory optimisations to Switch.

PlayStation VR2 fixes

• Improved the quality of particle rendering in PSVR2.