All New Accessibility Features Coming To No Man’s Sky – 4.1 Update

Not only do updates need to bring new content to the gamers, they also need to implement new mechanics, assess bugs, and well, make the game more accessible to many. That is quite a challenge. After all, there are lots of us people that need some customization to fully enjoy a game. Thankfully, Hello Games have proven that they do care about accessibility. Furthermore, they have done that again with the new Fractal Update, that is, version 4.1. Here are all the new accessibility features coming to No Man’s Sky.

All New Accessibility Features Coming To No Man’s Sky

With a game as big and with some much lore as No Man’s Sky, it is no wonder that throughout their several big updates, accessibility is one of the major points of discussion. After all, making all gamers alike enjoy the game is not an easy job. After all, you need enough customization and adjustments that will grant them a wonderful experience. With that being said, there are quite a bunch of new accessibility options being introduced in the game for its ninth expansion, called the Fractal Update. They are mostly focused on the visual part, but you will encounter all the new features regarding accessibility to be quite pleasing. Here is a very summarized list, with a more detailed one below it:

Accessibility Features Summarized

• A variety of tools to adjust visual effects, cameras, and controls. This will ensure a very personal and unique experience.
• With the Analysis Visor, you will be able to automatically scan fauna, flora, and minerals when they are screen-centered, without needed to push a second button push.
• You can now enlarge the menu text, which increases readability substantially. No longer will text feel like a white block in screens when seen from a distance. You can see a comparison below.

If you want a detail of all the options mentioned in the first bullet point, you can read them below, along some major quality of life improvements. You can see the whole Patch Notes for version 4.1 here, which includes the new Utopia Expedition alongside some other improvements to VR and several platform specific additions. Here are all the new accessibility features in No Man’s Sky.

New Options Introduced

• The various options menus have been reworked and reorganised to accommodate a new suite of options, as well as to help players quickly navigate to whichever option they wish to change.
• Options can now be adjusted from the boot and save select screens, allowing for customisation before starting a game.
• On PC, video and graphics options have been merged into one page for ease of use.
• An option has been added to allow players to set the in-game language to be different from the default system language of their device.
• An option has been added to reset your current position while aboard a freighter, to provide a safe return aboard after becoming stuck.
• An option has been added for all non-Switch platforms to use the enlarged menu text already used on the Switch.
• An option has been added to allow players to customise who has access to the contents of their refiners.
• An option has been added to remove all white flashes from the game and replace them with fades to black.
• An option has been added to allow players to adjust the strength of various hazard-related screen effects, such as visor frosting.
• An option has been added to allow players to disable all automatic “follow” camera movements in third-person.
• An option has been added to allow players to adjust the handedness of their player character in first-person mode.
• An option has been added to allow players to adjust the handedness of their player character in third-person mode and to move the character to the other side of the screen.
• An option has been added for PlayStation 4 VR users to use their DualShock 4 to directly control the cursor while in menus, instead of using the thumbsticks.
• A number of options have been added for VR players to adjust the distance from the screen of various menu elements.
• An option has been added for VR players to adjust the strength of the vignette effect deployed to reduce motion sickness.
• An option has been added to allow players to scan objects with the Analysis Visor without being required to hold down the scan button.
• An option has been added to allow players to toggle the behaviour of the jump button on gamepads, so that it can be used as an alternative “Build” button while in base-building mode.
• An option has been added to allow players to swap the functions on gamepad thumbsticks, i.e. to toggle which stick is Sprint and which stick is Scan.

UI and Quality of Life Improvements

• A significant number of new player titles have been added, earned by progressing through various core and factional milestones.
• The maximum number of owned starships has increased from nine to twelve.
• Players can now “Quick Charge” a technology, without having to drag and drop the fuel into the selected slot. Select and drop functionality has been retained for players who wish to fine-tune the amount of charging substance used.
• Additional filters have been added to the Expedition and Twitch reward menus, accessed via the Quicksilver Synthesis Companion.
• Players can now begin an expedition at any time before the current expedition ends, rather than needing to start two days before the expedition times out.
• A variety of new cooking recipes have been added, making use of various titan worm-related products.
• The accuracy and input tracking speed of inputs on PlayStation controllers has been improved.
• The hint system for crafting components that you cannot currently afford has been improved.
• Objectives in pinned installation or crafting missions now correctly skip sections for subcomponents if the player already has enough of the parent component.
• Fixed an issue where text and highlighting in the build popup would not correctly reflect the amounts needed, if the item in question is built in multiples greater than one (such as projectile ammunition).
• Fixed an issue that caused the Personal Refiner to always show 0 as its current progress while it is being highlighted by a mission hint.
• Fixed an issue that prevented crafting highlights from working in the Multi-Tool inventory.
• Technologies are now always installed fully charged when playing on a difficulty setting that does not use up fuel.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent a base computer from being moved before it had been claimed as a base.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent Exocraft weapons from being correctly auto-selected after installation.
• Fixed an issue where an Exocraft would not become your primary selected vehicle after building its geobay.
• The Ship Launch Auto-Charger now requires a solar mirror rather than a magnetic resonator to install.
• The “Stories Learned” count in the Catalogue no longer counts every individual word of alien language as its own story.
• The selection highlights for the various collections in the Catalogue have been updated.
• The selection highlights for the various game mode options when starting a new game have been updated.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the words PREV | NEXT to become stuck on the screen after teleporting aboard a frigate.
• Fixed an issue that caused the “destructible” target icon to appear low res.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the creature icons in the Analysis Visor to appear low res.
• The icon used to indicate the presence of a biological horror has been updated.
• Fixed an issue that caused the preview of the jetpack/starship/Multi-Tool etc to be rotated when scrolling a scrollbar in the inventory.
• Fixed an issue that caused base parts to still be flagged as new and unseen in the base building menu despite having been built.
• Fixed an issue that caused descriptions to vanish from the base building popup panel in some circumstances.
• Fixed a visual glitch that could cause flickering lines when viewing expedition milestones.
• Fixed an issue that caused the scrollbar to be in the wrong visual state after changing from one story to another in the Collected Knowledge section of the catalogue.
• Fixed an issue that caused there to be no page count dots on the bottom of some catalogue categories.
• Fixed a large number of issues that could cause cropping text, particularly in VR.
• Fixed a large number of typos and spelling errors.
• Fixed an issue that could occasionally cause some NPC dialogue boxes to be skipped over.

Related: How to Start and Complete Utopia Expedition in No Man’s Sky

As you can see, the folks at Hello Game do really have their hands full when trying to improve an already great game, bringing for new accessibility features to No Man’s Sky. I admire that, you know? The No Man’s Sky story is something that should be taught at colleges around the world. How a franchise destined for failure got back on its feet and becomes a well-beloved piece of entertainment. Anyway, have a good time in Utopia.

No Man’s Sky is available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows, and macOS. Please check out Gamer Journalist on Facebook to join the discussion and keep up to date with our content. You might also like to check out or guides on How to Get Fearsome Visor in No Man’s Sky or How to Claim Twitch Rewards for No Man’s Sky.