While today might be a "quieter" edition of Mass Effect's celebratory N7 Day, BioWare's promise of "a little fun" is already paying off. Three years after No Man's Sky pulled off one of the coolest gaming Easter eggs ever, the Normandy is returning to the galactic sandbox.
"In the intervening years since that event, we have welcomed a huge number of Travellers, not least a whole new cohort of Switch players and an increasingly large number of Chinese fans," No Man's Sky boss Sean Murray writes in the announcement. "Many of these new players have envied those who proudly displayed their Normandy in their frigate collection. Mass Effect fans know that this legendary frigate only appears when it is most needed! Today, and for the next two weeks, as a love letter from one science fiction game to another, we are giving everyone another chance to encounter the Normandy in an overhauled version of the original mission and add it to their collection."
So, if you want to grab the Normandy for your own fleet, you'll need to do so before November 21. There are plenty of other reasons to dive into No Man's Sky as of today, too. Chief among them is cross-save, which is now going into beta. You can head to the official site and link your accounts there for now. "Participants in the beta will be able to upload and download saves from any connected platform via the in-game save screen," as Murray explains. "In the coming weeks, all players will be invited to do so."
Finally, if you're awaiting a PS5 Pro pre-order, Hello Games has just lifted the veil on what No Man's Sky's enhancements will look like on the console. You'll get PSSR upscaling for 60 FPS performance at 4K, alongside improved visual effects like lighting, reflections, and ambient occlusion. If you're one of the vanishingly small number of 8K TV owners, you'll also have access to an 8K 30 FPS mode with more pixels than you could ever dream.
Anything to make the wait for Mass Effect 5 a little bit easier...