The newest update to No Man’s Sky finally adds a fishing minigame

Hello Games have been tirelessly updating No Man’s Sky over the years, adding all sorts of odds and ends to the space exploration game: expeditions, sandworms, thunderstorms, piracy, and more. But there’s still one thing sorely lacking in No Man’s Sky, and it’s the humble fishing minigame. Luckily, on Wednesday, Hello Games announced a new update, Aquarius, and it finally lets you hunker down and fish to your heart’s content.

The previous No Man’s Sky patch introduced the first Worlds update, which changed a lot about previously familiar planets. Hello Games paid particular attention to water, adding dynamic wave generation and sparkling surface reflections. Sean Murray, managing director of Hello Games, notes in this announcement that Worlds was very successful, leading to the highest player count in five years. One piece of fan art, depicting a traveller fishing from the wing of their boat, inspired the team to create the Aquarius update.

Now, players are incentivized to find a lovely lake or vast ocean, settle down, and catch some fish. It looks like there are some normal looking fish that aren’t too far off from our own specimens on Earth, and some much weirder alien creatures that are more befitting of the wild and weird planets of No Man’s Sky.

Players can equip bait to lure in rare fish, find hidden messages left behind in a bottle, earn trophies, and unlock new equipment, like a personal fishing platform that can be easily set up in deep water and alien environments, or fishing pots that can be left to trap rare catches. It’s also possible to cook these fishes up, and there are new recipes and combinations to be discovered.

The Aquarius update is free, and available now on PC and consoles.