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  The Space Anomaly gathering place has gotten a visual overhaul. [credit: Hello Games ]

Today was a red-letter day for space exploration and crafting game No Man's Sky . The game released on Nintendo Switch, first of all, but that release was accompanied by a major overhaul to many of the game's menus and systems. Developer Hello Games has dubbed it " No Man's Sky 4.0," or the "Waypoint" update .

Since its launch in 2016, No Man's Sky has been through numerous changes and iterations, to the point that today's Minecraft - or Valheim -esque experience barely resembles the ambient, aimless exploration of the original release. Today's update isn't as major as the one that turned an exploration game into a crafting one, but it's probably the runner-up, in that it offers a sweeping array of quality-of-life improvements.

Many of these are related to either the game's inventory system or its difficulty levels. Neither of these things is necessarily as flashy as new features like space whales, horror-like abandoned cruiser expeditions, trainable alien animals, or pilotable mechs, all of which (and more) were added in one update or another since launch. But anyone who has played No Man's Sky at any point will know that the game can be a little rough around the edges in those two areas, so sweeping changes there may be welcome.