No Man’s Sky’s Leviathan update will trap you in a roguelike time loop

Hello Games’ intergalactic wandering simulator No Man’s Sky has gone roguelike for its seventh free expedition update, Leviathan. With a name like that you’d expect something pretty big and, lo, the space whales have arrived. You’ll be able to recruit these leviathans for your capital ship’s frigate fleet, and even keep a baby version as a pet inside your base.

This expedition’s roguelike credentials stem from it being a time loop, with the game set to survival mode difficulty. If your Traveller dies then they’ll be booted back to start all over again. Don’t freak out though – you’ll come across Memory Fragments during each loop that act as stuff that was lost in previous loops. Collecting these fragments gives you procedurally generated tech that gets better as more Travellers help out researching the loop phenomenon. Seek out Specialist Polo to help with that, and you might even break free of the loop.

Hello Games are cryptic about the whole time loop thing, but it seems those naughty space whales might be behind it in some way. There’s quite a few rewards to nab from the expedition to make up for your trouble though, ranging from some in-game posters to a dashing Whalestalker cloak, and actually acquiring a leviathan as an organic addition to your frigate fleet.

The Leviathan expedition has already begun and will run for around six weeks. If you haven’t already picked up No Man’s Sky then it’s currently 50% off on Steam.