New No Man's Sky Xeno Arena update adds a full-fledged Fight Club for your alien pets

No Man’s Sky Xeno Arena brings new pets, as well as a combat system replete with devastating abilities, elemental affinities, and more.

You can't really go wrong with creature collecting. Give me a colorful world with cute critters to capture and pit against one another and my wallet is yours. It's what being raised on a diet of Pokémon and Digimon will do to a person; not that I'm complaining. No Man's Sky already sports some incredible views from the space game's generated planets, and you've been able to tame many of its Xenos for several years. The only thing that's been missing is some good ol' fashioned brawling, but its freshly-launched Xeno Arena update changes that.

No Man's Sky Xeno Arena introduces holo arenas that can be found in space stations across the universe, as well as in the Nexus. Now, your tamed Xenos can form a squad, making use of their new abilities to dominate the field, be it against pals, randoms online, or in-game NPCs. Developer Hello Games is adding new Xeno types, some of which boast rare abilities that will no doubt give you an edge in battle, so keep an eye out for those as you're scouring biomes for resources.

Each Xeno now has an elemental affinity, which is tied not only to its species, but also to its home world. As Hello Games head Sean Murray notes, "A blob creature evolved on a toxic planet has different abilities to a flying dino born on a frozen moon." Think Pokémon's Alolan forms, though I'm not sure there'll be a Xeno quite as goofy as long boi Exeggutor.

Xeno Arena is more than just a simple add-on activity, as Sean Murray calls it "an entire multiplayer game all of its own." Promising a player progression path, replete with its own daily challenges that yield "ultimate rewards," you'll want to dig out that old Ash Ketchum cap that's been gathering dust in your parents' basement (alongside your old Pokémon cards, seeing as they're worth a small fortune nowadays).

Although I've made plenty of comparisons to Nintendo's iconic videogame series, it's for good reason. Murray says the team are "huge fans" of Pokémon, alongside Palworld and World of Warcraft's pet battles, and the influences speak for themselves. No Man's Sky Xeno Arena is out now, so be sure to check it out if you haven't charted a course to some far-flung planet in a hot minute. A big ol' Starfield DLC's just landed, too, so you've got plenty of sci-fi goodness to enjoy if you're still riding that Artemis II high.