No Man's Sky overhauls combat, adds a massive flame-throwing sentinel

pcgamer.com:

Hello Games continues cranking out free updates for space sandbox No Man's Sky nearly six years after it launched, and the first patch of 2022 centers around those pesky planetary guardians: the sentinels. Bad news: there's a really big, mean sentinel now and it has a lot of different ways to make your planet-hopping adventures a living hell. Good news: you've got a lot of new ways to fight it, and some cool rewards when you beat it and strip it for parts.

Combat in No Man's Sky has never been particularly complex, mostly boiling down to a bunch of pew-pew laser battles, but the new Sentinel update aims to change that. 

«Combat has been significantly improved to create a faster-paced, more varied and dynamic experience,» says Hello Games. «Tweaks include changes to camera settings, Sentinel health, Traveller and Sentinel weapon speeds and fire rates, hit indicators, rumble and camera shake, and more.»

New weapons? Check. An upgrade to your multitool will let you fire stun grenades that can disable enemies caught in the blast. There's also a neutron cannon that unleashes a cone of destruction when charged, and can also be fired rapidly for less damage but a quicker attack. And if you want to avoid a fight altogether or gain an advantage during one, you can go full Predator. By researching the new camouflage tech on the Space Anomaly, you can activate a cloaking device that renders you invisible to enemies, even in the middle of a fight. 

Don't think your new combat upgrades are going to let you easily conquer the galaxy. Sentinels, those killjoys of No Man's Sky who get deeply offended if you kill trees or abscond with pearls, have been upgraded as well. There's a brand new sentinel added to the mix, and it's a big one.