Part of the series:

No Man's Sky Tips & Tricks: Hub for multiplayer, QoL, rewards, and hidden questlines.

Game Modes & Difficulty Settings Explained: Understand the preset modes.

Quick Answer

Custom difficulty lets you disable survival pressure while keeping exploration and combat intact.
Turn off tutorial hints if you are experienced.
Adjust HUD settings to reduce clutter or highlight objectives.
Disable multiplayer before using community-shared coordinates.
Rebind controls and adjust field-of-view for comfort.
Balance graphics presets between visual quality and frame rate.

Overview

No Man's Sky offers an unusually flexible settings menu. You can make the game harder, easier, or simply less annoying without cheating. The right settings remove repetitive friction and let you focus on exploration, building, or combat.

This guide highlights the most impactful quality-of-life settings and explains when to change them.

Custom Difficulty

Custom difficulty is the most powerful setting in the game. It breaks difficulty into categories:

Survival: environmental hazards, life support drain, death penalties
Crafting: recipe costs, refining speed, farming yield
Combat: enemy damage, Sentinel aggression
Ease-of-Use: tutorial hints, tooltips, base building restrictions

A popular setup for relaxed exploration:

Category	Setting	Effect
Survival	Low hazard drain	Less time recharging protection
Crafting	Standard	Keep meaningful resource loops
Combat	Normal	Keep some danger
Ease-of-Use	High	Reduce tutorial interruptions

You can change these settings mid-playthrough from the options menu.

HUD and Interface

The HUD can become cluttered with markers, notifications, and scan data. Useful adjustments:

Disable mission reminders if you know your objectives.
Reduce marker opacity to see the environment better.
Enable or disable compass objectives based on whether you want hand-holding.
Turn off discovery upload prompts if you upload manually.

A cleaner HUD makes screenshots and exploration more enjoyable.

Multiplayer Toggle

The Network settings let you control who can join your session:

No one: pure solo
Friends only: invite-only
Anyone: public

Set this to No one before traveling to community-shared coordinates for rare ships or multi-tools. This prevents another player from claiming the discovery before you arrive.

Controls and Camera

Increase field of view for a wider perspective.
Adjust mouse sensitivity or controller dead zones to your preference.
Toggle hold-vs-toggle for sprinting, scanning, and other actions.
Enable third-person camera for combat and riding if you prefer it.

Graphics and Performance

No Man's Sky can be demanding on older hardware. If you experience frame drops:

Lower shadow quality and reflection settings first.
Reduce terrain tessellation.
Cap frame rate to match your monitor's refresh rate.
Use performance mode on supported platforms.

For the best visual experience on capable hardware, prioritize draw distance and texture quality.

Base Building Helpers

Enable snap-to-grid or free placement depending on your building style.
Turn on wire visibility when troubleshooting power.
Use the terrain edit restoration setting to prevent base terrain from regenerating.

Beyond the Settings Menu

On PC, mods can go further than the options screen allows, though they break with most updates. See the PC mods guide.

For camera and screenshot options, see the photo mode guide. If you play in a headset, the VR guide covers the comfort options that matter most.

Controls, Camera & Fixing Problems

For third-person view, field of view sliders, flight sticks, and fixes for crashes or version mismatches, see the settings, controls and troubleshooting guide.

FAQ

Will changing difficulty disable achievements?

Most achievements can be earned in Custom difficulty. A small number of achievements are tied to specific modes, such as reaching the center in Survival or Permadeath. Check the achievement description before changing settings if you are hunting a specific one.

Can I save multiple setting presets?

The game does not support multiple named presets. You can manually note your preferred values and adjust them when switching playstyles.

What is the best difficulty for new players?

Normal or Relaxed is recommended for new players. Normal provides survival pressure without being punishing. Relaxed removes most danger entirely.

Does turning off multiplayer affect the game economy?

No. Multiplayer only affects whether other players can join your session or appear in the Anomaly. Galactic trade prices and mission rewards are unchanged.

Should I disable tutorial hints?

Only if you are already familiar with the game. New players should leave tutorials on until they understand core systems.

Key Takeaways

Custom difficulty is the most impactful quality-of-life tool.
Reduce HUD clutter and disable hints once you know the game.
Turn off multiplayer when hunting rare shared coordinates.
Adjust controls and camera for comfort.
Balance graphics settings for stable performance.

No Man's Sky: Best Quality-of-Life Settings