14 DAY TRIAL // The folks at Hello Games are very serious about No Man's Sky. After a less than stellar launch, the game is now better than anyone at that time thought it would be. Before reporting about the latest No Man's Sky update, we strongly recommend giving it another try if you haven't already, the game is quite exceptional after the latest major updates.
The 5th Beyond update isn't as important as some other that have been released in the past, but it does being a major item to the game – the ByteBeat Device, a full audio creation application for No Man's Sky.
“Base building is a big part of what people spend their time doing in our game, and a frequent request is for the ability to add sounds and music to their construction. Our team always likes a creative challenge, and audio is one of our big passions. Over the last few weeks, one of our coders got obsessed with making an audio creation tool for the community, we were so excited about it we thought it’d be a nice surprise to release it.”
To be able to build the ByteBeat Device, you will first need to learn the module blueprints from the Space Anomaly. Once it's built within your base, it will immediately begin to play a unique pattern of procedurally-generated music.
The sound formulas you'll be hearing are made out of simple waveforms that are manipulated through maths, but by default, the device handles all of the mathematical heavy liftings, procedurally generating random presets for you to play with. Of course, if you have some experience with music, you have the option to explore deeper and manually sketch out note sequences, rhythms, and even manipulate the raw sounds.
What's even more interesting is that the ByteBeat Device can be synchronized by snapping it to other ByteBeats, or connecting the device with a new type of cable allowing players to layer multiple tracks and create more complex arrangements. Also, a new ByteBeat Switch lets you power other devices, such as lights, with bursts of power that sync up to the rhythm of the tracks.
Along with the new music app, Hello Games introduced a bucketload of bug fixes and improvements in update 2.24, which is now live on all platforms, so make sure to read the full changelog to learn more.