No Man's Sky is getting a turn-based pet battling mode

Hello Games just announced Xeno Arena, a new update for No Man's Sky that adds turn-based pet battles and genetic modification to the sprawling space game. Players can now capture alien creatures, assemble combat teams, and fight against NPCs or other players in dedicated arenas.

The studio's decade-long effort to turn No Man's Sky around is probably the best redemption story in gaming history. The game launched in 2016 as a lonely and somewhat empty universe. Ten years later, it has absorbed base building, mech combat, underwater exploration, full multiplayer fleets, and now an entire monster-taming RPG. Hello Games keeps bolting entirely new genres onto its procedural framework.

Breeding better aliens

The update introduces a dedicated pet log to track captured species and their specific combat abilities. You are not stuck with the base stats of the creatures you find wandering around radioactive planets. Players can take alien eggs to high-tech laboratory stations and genetically alter them. This lets you tweak a creature's genetic makeup before it hatches.

You will need those genetic tweaks to survive the higher difficulty tiers. Combat takes place in holographic arenas scattered across the galaxy. The battles are entirely turn-based. Your customized team of creatures uses energy beams, physical strikes, and rare species-specific abilities to knock out the opposition. Finding the right combination of attacks requires exploring different star systems to locate creatures with unusual traits.

The math doesn't math

Hello Games built a competitive layer on top of the breeding mechanics. You can battle your friends directly or take on daily challenges against rotating alien competitors. Players stand at the edge of the arena and issue commands as giant armored beetles fight mechanical dogs in bursts of blue energy. The daily challenges offer a specific set of rules and rewards to keep players coming back to the arena.

The scale of the creatures adds a layer of absurdity to the whole system. You can tame tiny floating jellyfish, but you can also recruit towering dinosaurs that barely fit inside the arena boundaries. Managing a team of massive beasts requires careful planning, mostly because you have to figure out how to transport a three-ton lizard across the galaxy.

The game is rated Teen for Animated Blood and Fantasy Violence, so the pet battles remain relatively bloodless. The creatures just faint or teleport away when defeated.

The PlayStation YouTube channel uploaded the initial trailer, but No Man's Sky updates always launch across all supported platforms simultaneously. Xeno Arena will be available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. The update also fully supports virtual reality headsets like PS VR2 and PC VR. You can read the patch notes on the official No Man's Sky website.

At this rate, the 2028 update will probably add a kart racer. We might as well start preparing our genetically modified space beetles for the track.