No Man's Sky is celebrating its seventh anniversary with the Echo update, which improves the space combat system and adds sunken rendering on PSVR 2.
echois the 26th named update for No Man's Sky, a game originally released in 2016 to mixed reviews. The game added SteamVR and PlayStation VR support in 2019, and was the launch title for the PlayStation VR 2 earlier this year.
In our PSVR 2 review, we called it offering "a virtually infinite universe to explore and a sense of scale that's hard to match in VR," with procedurally generated planets, endless space oceans and more people support.
The Interceptors update earlier this year improved wrist interface controls in VR and promised "significantly improved image quality" on PSVR 2. And the new "Echo" update goes a step further, adding support for notch rendering on PSVR 2 and "significant rendering optimizations" for all VR headsets.
Notch rendering is a technique where only the area your eyes are currently looking at is rendered at full resolution, improving performance because the rest of the image is lower resolution. Freed up GPU resources can be used to improve performance, increase notch rendering resolution, or increase graphics settings. It takes advantage of the fact that our eyes can only see at high resolution in the central area of the field of view.
Developer Hello Games claims that notch rendering and new optimizations mean "overall improvements in rendering quality, stability, and performance" on PSVR 2.
In terms of gameplay, the "Echo" update focuses on space combat. You can now transfer power to engines, shields, or weapons, and huge pirate galleons have been added to bring "colossal space combat" to the game. "Protect the fleet from pirates. Run through enemy trenches to break their shields and destroy them!"
"Echo" also introduces a new "long-hidden" race of robots. Participate in robot missions to earn mechanical parts for your own robot avatar. Other notable changes include allowing travelers to find, trade, and scrap weapons as "multitool scrap merchants."
"No Man's Sky"echoAvailable now on all supported platforms, including SteamVR and PlayStation VR 2.
EN_US 
ZH