PJ O'Reilly | Nintendo Life

[Beacon] adds a bunch of settlement management aspects, a new Autophage enemy type, base infestations, building upgrades, new base structures, and more besides. Basically, it's given us the tools to get busy actually affecting, managing, and influencing settlements and their various alien inhabitants, right down to fending off attacks.

... Is it perfect? No, it absolutely tries to do too much all at once, and as a result you don't get the very best of everything...

... This really is No Man's Sky without any constraints or excisions, cuts or concessions to tech that can't keep up. And it's a majestic thing, as you'll likely know full well by now. The Beacon update adds more depth for those who want it in the base-building and management aspects, but at this stage, it really is all gravy.

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ImDino | Steam Review

From its humble and somewhat rocky launch to its evolution into one of the most captivating space exploration games out there, No Man's Sky has truly earned its place among the stars. What was once criticized for not meeting the lofty expectations set by its ambitious trailers has now become a triumph of development, community support, and limitless imagination.

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DisasterIncarnate | Steam user

There is functionally no difference now than before the patch, before you had to do one minor thing then wait for ages for that to complete then wait again for an event to trigger with absolutely nothing to do in-between.

After the patch that cycle remains exactly the same only across 3-4 settlements instead of one.

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Painter_Turbulent | Reddit user

Settlements are IMO still something you will barely interact with when done and the long drawn out process of upgrading them is just an artificial way of making progress take time.

Overall a fun and welcome addition, with some smaller fixes but no game changer, and one that will after some time leave you in more or less the same place you were to begin with.