‘No Man’s Sky’ Fans Get Strange Packages From Hello Games - Update Incoming?

No Man’s Sky hasn’t been substantially updated since March, but it looks like its developers at Hello Games are teasing something big ahead of E3 2017. A reddit thread alleges 16 moderators from various related subreddits have received mysterious packages with possible clues for what’s next.

As of Monday evening, several sources had confirmed delivery of boxes containing swag and a numbered cassette tape ranging from 1 to 16. Pictures of the cassettes can be seen below, but, at the time of writing, no audio has been shared by the lucky mods. Not only do most of the recipients not have tape players or the hardware to digitally capture them, but questions remain about whether Hello Games wants the contents of these tapes to be made public. We’ll try to provide an update with audio as soon as we’re able.

Read: Hello Games Is Still Working On Updates For No Man’s Sky

Even though we can’t hear the surprise that Hello has left for this select group of fans, the timing of its arrival is especially interesting. With just one week to go until Sony’s E3 press conference, might these parcels tease an upcoming announcement? Will Sean Murray take to the stage to address PlayStation nation, or will we see something in a press release during the convention? This news seems all too timely to be meaningless.

It’s also worth pointing out that Hello Games has even been more active on Twitter over the past few days as well. Last week we reported Hello Games was still working on new content for the game. It’s no coincidence that now we’re seemingly getting a small tease of what those updates might offer.

While there’s no true indication of what the messages might reveal, some assumptions from those with a tape suggest the package may have ties to No Man’s Sky’s broken Portals feature. Players have come across dozens of portals in the game’s sprawling universe, and they currently have no known use. Data mining has concluded that the feature is almost completely functional in-game, but nobody’s cracked the code yet. Might these tapes point community members in the right direction? Maybe.

Read: No Man’s Sky’s Next Update May Resurrect A Pre-Release Feature

No Man’s Sky ’s last big update, the Path Finder update, introduced vehicles, basic ship classes and races to the game. It was preceded by the Foundation Update late last year. Both updates offered sizeable expansions to the vanilla game, and both were introduced after several months of dead silence. If the studio is keeping to its prior development schedule, a new patch should be ready soon.

The question that remains, however, is if there are enough No Man’s Sky fans still willing to spend more time with the game. During E3 2016, Hello was feverishly polishing one of the year’s most anticipated releases. About two months later, No Man’s Sky became the subject of ridicule and hatred like no game before it. Hello has tried to gain favor by offering new content for free, but many passionate explorers never returned after launch.

No Man’s Sky is available now on PS4 and PC.

What do you think about these teaser tapes? Is No Man’s Sky getting its next big update soon? What will it contain? Tell us in the comments section!