From what I’ve gathered on YouTube, I believe I’m one of the few people who liked this update. Obviously guys who like combat really hated this update and thought it was a complete waste of time. With that aside, here is my review of the update. I do like the update so this review is biased. Fishing is something I’ve always wanted in No Man’s Sky, so for me, this was great. I would have liked it to be a type of mini-game, like the fishing in Stardew Valley, but I’m perfectly content with what we were given. It works and its simple. For me, this isn’t an update that you’re going to focus on. I like to explore, I’m still looking for the perfect planet to call home. Although I haven’t found a home planet yet, some planets can still impress me with the terrain, colors, or beauty, and sometimes I say to myself, “Should I just make a base here so I can come back?” Most of the time, I don’t make a base but I’m generally reluctant to leave the planet. Fishing allows me to stop and appreciate the planet for a little bit before moving on. Other planet types can be beautiful too, not just paradise planets. This is the main reason I like this update. Like I said, for a player like me, fishing is not something I would focus on. I liked the earlier versions of No Man’s Sky, vanilla, Foundation, and Pathfinder. There was a loneliness to it and existential desolation, it was beautiful in a way. If fishing had been a part of these versions, I think it would have been the perfect game. Today’s version of No Man’s Sky doesn’t have the loneliness and desolation and so the fishing doesn’t have quite the same impact. I like the fishing because it expands the existential aspect of the game. You can blast into space and fight pirates or you can go fishing on a paradise planet. I don’t use the skiff when I am exploring, I just use my starship. I have a base that is completely underwater and I have placed the skiff as a permanent addition above the base. If I summon the skiff on a random planet, it would ruin the placement. Behind the skiff, I have permamently placed three of the automatic fishing traps which I just check up on every now and then.
Suggestions:
Redesign the skiff to include a food processor. On both sides of the skiff you can access the cold storage. I don’t think there’s a need for this. Turn one side into a food processor. This would enable you to fish and cook at the same time. If this functionality was added, I would most likely summon the skiff on random planets.
Include a new “difficulty” setting. Don’t allow the ability to replensih life support with oxygen. Life support can only be replenished with gathered food or processed food. This would make cooking in No Man’s Sky useful.
Vary the bonuses you can get with food. From what I’ve seen so far, food either replenishes life support or hazard protection. I don’t believe there’s anything else. Have food give bonuses such as mining yield or combat yield, greater yields when searching containers, or more multi-tool combat damage. I have no doubt vehicle races and starship races will be coming sometime in the future. Have food boost your ability to handle the vehicle or the starship by giving temporary bonuses to the vehicle or ship’s maneuverability. Bonuses should last for at least an hour to make cooking them worth it.
Food processor installation for the starship.
Here is the latest new character in my No Man’s Sky universe… Triton, The Mariner.
I think that this update fits well within the NMS universe. Better than some previous updates. What I like is how it enhances several existing systems without replacing any of them. New activities for water themed bases, adds features to cooking, trophies for the completionist. One example is while waiting for a build to complete in my settlement, instead of hiding in some building and rearranging inventory I could go to the beach and fish a bit. Maybe it is not a marquee feature, but it fills some voids.
I think the verdict is it’s unanimously loved and those who aren’t in to it aren’t angry about it either.
It’s just youtube and twitter comments can make it seem this way, the quickest route to success and attention on those platforms is through hate.
Reddit and other places, everyone seems to be having a whale of a time.
Anyone complaining at this point has probably only just jumped on the bandwagon recently and are certainly not worth the attention if an update that doesnt cater to them makes them angry or upset, or they just havent been paying attention and realised none of the NMS updates have ever catered to what everyone wants.
This game has frequent updates, some small additions with expeditions, some big core updates by themselves with expeditions later.
I think all we are seeing here is a re-emergence of the kind of people who we lost on launch day because the game didn’t somehow defy the known limitations of proc gen and small team development and meet their wildest fantasies.
I’ve seen comments about how people felt conned by worlds because the next update was just fishing and saying worlds part 2 is a con (god help the misinformed but keep them away from shouting nonsense '^_ ^ )
I’ve seen some people compare this small update accompanying an expedition with frickin Next and saying its lazy and HG are taking your money again. Or something.
I even seen someone get angry because they convinced themselves it was a LNF tease and they didn’t want fishing in NMS.
Morons everywhere. Myself included for giving them this much of my time XD
I like the concept of the update, and the variety in fish types based on biome, depth and conditions really makes it worth being out and about during different times and storms.
I wasn’t really a big fan of the expedition since most of it relied on the fishing RNG, but that might just be because of my miserly attitude towards trying new bait types
The most interesting part of this update has to be the Water Physics on the Skiff, Traps and your landed ships though! I have a feeling this is HG testing out something for the future. The skiff is really fun for standing around in a violent ocean storm and actually feeling the danger. I was pretty surprised to see it flip over a bunch and get launched off a big wave, and that’s probably what I’ve spent the most time doing this iteration haha.
A lot of people on reddit are asking them to make the Skiff completely storm proof and stop it from tipping over etc…
Those people must never be listened to XD You are nuking it of all its fun if you do that, and there are alternatives, build a safety shack if the Skiff is too hot to trot for yas.
The water Physics on skiff are my favourite thing and the most surprising thing of the whole update. When they added the wave form mesh to the water I figured, yeah having it interact with static objects and players is probably asking a bit much of the ps4/switch…
When I realised it wasn’t just the skiff/traps but damn near everything else, ship included, I was just blown away. HG are working madness in that studio.
I really hope it isn’t nerfed, people getting chucked off during storms are all standing right on the edge of their skiff, what do they think was going to happen? If you recentre you can actually ride it out a little better, it’s fun trying to balance on it Getting knocked off while fishing is fun too because you can still reel your catch in
HG seem to have a good ability of knowing which fans not to listen to so I’m hoping they don’t make the Skiff OP in storms. It gives player reason and purpose to build something more solid to fish from in very extreme ocean environments. And you can still jump to your skiff if you want to experience XTREEEEME FISHIIIING (90s radical voice over)
I was googling for a early animation trope of man getting pulled in by fish caught on rod, google gave me this AI generated image instead and I think I just have to go with it…
I just jump up onto my nearby ship in storms if I don’t feel like skiff-storm-surfing. Seems a pretty simple solution.
During the expedition was the first time I’ve really built little temporary camps. Sometimes a hut. Sometimes a TM mud thing or maybe a cave. Sometimes a couple of quick moduler buildings.
On one little pair of islands I TMed a little bridge and fished off that.
The chill nature of just waiting for fishy-traps got me messing about in a way I rarely have before.
Well, from my point of view, it wasn’t inspiring. Fishing? Meh.
As a piece of coding, it was competently done - everything worked - presumably as intended. I played through the expedition because it was a task the game set me, but I suspect I will never voluntarily use the fishing facilities again.
It’s a free update - I can’t complain. I don’t hate it - but I didn’t find it exciting or interesting, either. If HG had asked me to pay for an undisclosed update, then delivered this, I would feel cheated.
Getting knocked off while fishing is fun too because you can still reel your catch in 
Most people who didn’t want fishing don’t hate the update 