No Man’s Sky: 4.0 Guide to Gamemodes & Custom Difficulty

No Man’s Sky continue to be supported as it now releases the new 4.0 update, Waypoint. Here, we get new content to enjoy as we play the game. Two highlights have come from this update: gamemodes and Custom Difficulty. Both are the highlights of this update because prior to this, No Man’s Sky had no difficulty options, with the exception of Permadeath. What do these new gamemodes do? And what can you configure in Custom Difficulty? This guide will explain to you the newly added content so you can better understand the Waypoint update of No Man’s Sky.

4.0 Guide to Gamemodes & Custom Difficulty – No Man’s Sky

Starting off with the gamemodes, we see here that we have six different options.

• Normal – An infinite journey: explore and survive in a boundless universe.
• Relaxed – A streamlined experience: fewer systems to manage, lower costs.
• Creative – Explore and create freely: no costs, no damage, no limits.
• Community Expedition – Undertake a time-limited expedition for special rewards.
• Custom – From gentle to permadeath: total control over your experience.
• Survival – A survival challenge: more hazards, smaller inventory, increased costs.

From the descriptions of the gammodes, we can ascertain that Community Expedition are for special events and such. Normal, Relaxed, and Survival are the essentially just Normal, Easy, and Hard difficulty with different names. Creative is just like Minecraft’s Creative Mode where you can freely do whatever you want without having to worry about anything else.

Lastly is Custom, which is our next focus in this guide.

When you click on Custom, you will be introduced with an array of different settings that you can customize to suit your preferred gameplay.

• Survival Elements – This setting affects your Exosuit. You can control whether your Life Support or Hazard Technology needs to be recharged or not.
• Survival Difficulty – This setting also affects your Exosuit. It determines how fast your systems are drained as you play the game.
• Natural Resources – This setting affects the resources you can find in the world. You can change the setting to either have an abundance of natural resources, or almost none at all.
• Sprinting – This setting affects your sprinting. You can tweak the setting to have you sprint forever or drain less energy when you sprint.
• Scanner Recharge – This setting affects your Scanner. You can tune the setting to have your Scanner recharge quickly or slowly.
• Damage Levels – This setting affects how much damage you receive. You can either receive no damage or a lot of damage, depending on what setting you put it in.
• Technology Damage – This setting affects your technology like Exosuit and Starship. Similar to Damage Levels, you can either receive no damage or a lot for your tech.
• Death Consequences – This setting affects what will happen if you die. You can either have no item loss or your entire save file gets deleted.
• Fuel Usage – This setting affects your tech that uses fuel. You can use this setting to decrease fuel usage, or increase it.
• Crafting – This setting affects crafting. You can either set this to Free, where resources aren’t required, or Standard.
• Recipes & Blueprints – This setting affects recipes and blueprints in the game. If you start with All Unlocked, then you won’t have to worry about learning them. It’s the opposite if you choose Learnable.
• Purchases – This setting affects shopping in game. The prices in the game’s shops can go from free to expensive, depending on what you choose.
• Goods Availability – This setting affects the amount of goods that are available. You can either have an abundance of goods, or barely any at all.
• Inventory Stack Limits – This setting affects your inventory. Your inventory will have less spots the more difficult the difficulty you choose.
• Enemy Strength – This setting affects the enemy. You can choose whether your enemies are weak or extremely dangerous.
• On-Foot Combat – This setting affects combat encounters on the ground. You can toggle how frequent the attacks are.
• Space Combat – This setting affects combat encounters in space. Similar to On-Foot Combat.
• Creatures – This setting affects the creatures in the game. You can set the behavior of the creatures to either be hostile on sight, or passive even when attacked.
• Tutorial Missions – This setting affects the tutorial. You can either toggle this on or off.
• Inventory Transfer Range – This setting affects the transfer range of your inventory. You can either have the standard setting where you need to be nearby, or the infinite setting where you can do it anywhere.
• Hyperdrive System Access – This setting affects your warping destinations. If you have it on unrestricted, then you can warp to anywhere you want. If you set it to specialized, then you need specialized warp technology.
• Base Power – This setting affects your base. You can either have free power on your base, or you need the required generators and power networks.
• Reputation and Standing Gain – This setting affects how fast your Standing increases. You can go from very fast increase to super slow.
• Starting Slot – This setting affects your number of slots when you start the game. You can either have all slots unlocked when you start, or just upgrade them as you play.

And that is the settings you can configure in the Custom gamemode. Remember that there’s no shame in playing how you want to play. Gaming should be fun, and having the option to suit your wants and needs just adds more accessibility to you.

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