No Man’s Sky Frontiers added a load of new features to the game. Top of the list of those new features is settlements, and the ability to oversee them as the mayor. In this role, you’re pretty much the owner of the town, benefitting directly from the production it has, but also suffering under the strain of any costs associated with keeping the town happy and healthy. It’s a brilliant system that feels very much like a town simulator or building management game, but it works really well with the game’s building mechanics, which have thankfully also been updated with Frontiers.
I’ve not delved too much into the settlement management side of things yet, but what I’ve played feels really great. The game puts you in the driver’s seat and lets you do what you want. The locals can have their say, but it’s ultimately down to you to decide what gets built and the way in which your settlement developed. You can even glitch the game’s base building mechanics to allow you to build your base in and around the settlement. I’m quite thankful for this because I went for the first settlement I could find. It’s on a flaming inferno of a planet that’s incredibly hostile, and I hate it.
I haven’t had the chance to deal with settler requests yet, but I can see that they’re fairly basic. I think what I like the idea of is finding a settlement, building it up to be productive, and then flying off to do the same with another one. You can sit on a settlement and generate profit for ages, but after a while it’s just going to get boring. Sure, you can fight the Sentinels every time they come and attack, but the process of starting over from the beginning is all too tempting.
I hope that Hello Games continues to develop this system more because it’s awesome. There’s so much to dive into, and I can’t wait to see what the community makes from the pretty detailed building blocks we’ve been given with the base of the settlement system in Frontiers.