I expressed a fair bit of skepticism the first time I heard Hello Games is adding base building to No Man's Sky, and while I'm still not completely sold on the idea, I must admit that the Foundation Update has turned out to be much nicer than I expected. You can now build bases on abandoned outposts, recruit aliens to help you manage things or research new items, stack items to save on inventory space, and if you're looking for a slightly different gameplay experience, try one of the two new game modes.

If you're interested in seeing what all of these changes mean for No Man's Sky, and more importantly, how they actually function in game, here's a brief developer-guided preview video:

As for the new game modes, you have Normal mode, Creative mode, and Survival mode. Normal mode, as you would expect, is basically the standard version of No Man's Sky and the one you're probably used to by now. Creative mode on the other hand is all about removing restrictions and allowing you to create the biggest base the world has ever seen. And finally, Survival mode is here to create a "much more challenging endurance experience", though how challenging that will actually be remains to be seen.

While I still don't feel the urge to reinstall No Man's Sky, I have to at the very least commend the developers for their efforts. It is patches like these, patches that actually bring in noticeable improvements and a good dose of interesting content, that have a chance to turn the currently mediocre version of No Man's Sky into something you would want to come back to, over and over again. We're not there yet, but after a couple of patches, who knows!