For somebody that was sick over the weekend, that… escalated rather quickly.
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I have had this thought for a couple of years as a feature that could be added to NMS for planetary zone variety like their flushing out of the oceans.
As for ice freezing at the top of water, I like the thought. But if they could do that for cold areas, couldn’t they also do that for lava and rock crust for volcanic planets, or goo with congealed crud for swamp or toxic planets?
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Since the debacle surrounding the launch of No Man’s Sky, Hello Games have, understandably, been reticent about their activities and plans. Recently, however, they seem to have been even more tight-lipped than usual.
Some years ago they announced they were working on a major new project, but there has been no official mention of that for a long time. They are still hiring, so we know they have specific goals, but there has been no news of what those goals might be.
In the meantime, updates to NMS have slowed, and when they do appear, they tend to be fairly minor in character. Since last July, updates have consisted of no more than re-runs of old missions. Hello Games seem to have more staff than ever, but they are releasing less product. Clearly their efforts are being directed somewhere else.
I have already said in previous posts that I believe Hello Games are using the NMS updates to testbed programming techniques and design features for their new project. I don’t expect the next update to be anything big, but I will be interested to see what technical challenges it adresses. I think the updates are currently our only clue to HG’s new game.
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Ok so I’ve done a deep dive and arrived at some highly plausible conclusions:
- Ice as in Ice Ice Baby, Vanilla Ice
“Stop, Collaborate and listen…”
multiplayer and bytebeat enhancements
- Snow, as in Informer by Snow
“Informer…you know beebleblahbeetabillwham, so licky boom boom down”
new faction “Spies” informers, infiltrate pirates and trade off/sell out to system authorities for rewards.
I am still working out the “licky boom boom down” bit, i keep coming back to the original licking IceCream theory 
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I’m going to take a punt & suggest 
hints at the introduction of seasons on certain planets.
Snow would obviously be a very obvious introduction but colour changing (& dropping) leaves in Autum & fields of flowers in spring could be a thing.
Not sure if the way planets generate would actually support such a thing, but that’s my 2 cents.
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would be licky boom boom 
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I think I prefer “beebleblahbeetabillwham”. It’s more intellectually satisfying.
Changing seasons for a whole planet would be very easy, as would changing vegetation colours in autumn. The game already has storms that come and go, and vegetation that glows at night. All it would need would be an adjustment of the timers and colours, and you could have snowstorms that come November - February, and leaves that turn brown at the same time.
Applying different weather to different parts of a planet is harder, but by no means impossible. HG already apply landscape features according to height (the game never places lakes or rivers in the sky). It ought to be possible to determine weather by planetary latitude.
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Well… changing it while you’re away would be easy. Changing it while you’re watching would be quite a lot of work.
But I honestly don’t think they’d do anything like this. All it does in the end is muddle the characteristics that give planets some of their uniqueness, and I can’t see them being interested in that.
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I wholeheartedly agree. Nevertheless, in allowing public consultation, and deliberately trying to implement the wishes of those Reddit members who shout the loudest, that’s exactly what Hello Games have been doing for the last four years. Sean Murray had vision and imagination, but the mob don’t.
If you look at the list of things people have requested for No Man’s Sky, there’s nothing new. It’s a mash-up of features that have appeared in hundreds of other games. And implementing those features is gradually robbing No Man’s Sky of the individual character it had on release.
You say that Hello Games wouldn’t be interested in changes that would damage the uniqueness of the planets, but they have been making such changes for years.
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NMS 50% on Steam
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Personal opinion: I think changing seasons would actually add to the depth and liveliness of planets overall and I can see them wanting this. Further reason being is that a few games are playing with the concept of changing seasons to change up gameplay and its been received positively so far. Depending on the planet and how seasons are implemented, it could cater to those that want more variety too.
For example, a volcanic planet would probably stay mostly the same. But a lush planet could see large amounts of unique flowers blooming for a limited time and visible fruit on trees(rather than just a 2D icon in your inventory) that you can pick from with procedurally generated fruit shapes and fruit descriptions and varied values on the market(could maybe add new merchants that buy and sell the food too) Grass could be thicker and more lush or change colors a little from, maybe light green to a dark green with a tint of blue for a limited time, to more dry and brown as winter draws nearer. In fall, you could see more wind and twigs and piles of leaves on the ground(I imagine that would be tough on our consoles and PCs to handle so likely not) And some animal types can “hibernate” while others come out during the winter or summer time only.
Reminds me a bit of some hikes I go on. It feels like a whole different hike in the winter vs the summer but I know its the same trail.
Currently, I spend my NMS life in my freighter or on space stations and only touch down on planets for resources or expeditions because there’s no reason to stay on a planet for me right now. But if there were seasons, I would look at a planet differently. I would see a view and think, “I wonder what this snowy valley would look like in the summer…”. So I would feel more inclined to plop down a base to come back and see. Or see a tree and wonder if it will give some cool looking fruits or have a high value.
Just my two cents and personal opinion. I doubt we’ll see anything of this much depth in NMS though. It would likely be just some color changes and leaves on or leaves off.
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My guess is the snowflake is a reference to its crytstal structure. I think this will be the “crystal update”. Maybe crystals will become abundant in caves again like they were when the game first released. Maybe green crystals will come back and be more frequent. Maybe there will be a new crystal planet type with new crystal assets and high frequency of red/yellow/blue/green crystals
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If seasons were to be added, they should be at least semi-realistic. That, in turn would mean computing (and showing) days to complete an orbit around the local star.
I don’t think that’s coming and I would not want to"wait around" for a seasonal change.
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It might be a good idea to spend some time on snowy planets before this update drops. Each update we end up asking, is this new? 
Several people saying tomorrow for update.
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I can’t believe it…
Its been staring us right in the face
“Winter is comin’…”
Ice Zombies in NMS confirmed 
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Yea, I highly doubt it would have the depth of real seasons due to no planets orbiting a sun. I mean, technically it could get away with it since its already known that we are in a simulation and none of the current planets make sense either 
Either way, i’ll take any free update that comes. Be that caves, weather, ship customisation, more test-bed features or even just a new color pallet.
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Last moments to get your name predictions in folks! The update’s gonna be upon us soon.
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Climate Change 
NMS Bleak
Snowfall
Snowbank
Nippy
Seriously, I think this has more to do with a possible Expedition and it will take us to some really cold planets.
I have parked myself on a cold, hostile Sentinel, ice storm planet while we wait.
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I just watched the news from Kiev. Possibly “Nuclear Winter”?
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