No Man's Sky's next major update Beyond gets a mid-August release date

No Man's Sky fans, you may now exhale; Hello Games has revealed that the exploratory sci-fi sim's long-awaited Beyond update will be coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC on 14th August.

Beyond, if you've not been keeping tabs, is No Man's Sky's seventh major update since launch in 2016 (following on from Foundation, Path Finder, Atlas Rises, Next, The Abyss, and Visions), and is the "most ambitious chapter so far" according to its developer.

Beyond will be another free update for No Man's Sky players, and consists of three major components. The first of these is full VR support on PC and PS4. It's an addition that's long been requested, if perhaps not expected, by fans, and it sounds like Hello Games' implementation will (if Martin Robinson's early impressions are anything to go by, at least) deliver in a big way.

Beyond's second major component is, currently, a little more of a mystery. All Hello Games has said so far is that it's called No Man's Sky Online and will deliver "a radical new social and multiplayer experience". This will seemingly build on the multiplayer features introduced in last year's Next update, and includes "many recognisable online elements" that will "[empower] players everywhere in the universe to meet and play together".

As for the third and final piece of the Beyond puzzle, Hello Games remains entirely tight-lipped on that front. However, with No Man's Sky's Beyond update - which the developer has stressed "won't require a subscription, won't contain micro-transactions, and will be free for all existing players" - now mere weeks away from launch, it shouldn't be long before all is revealed.