How to complete Naturalist in No Man’s Sky Expedition 1: Pioneers

Naturalist is the fifth Milestone in the first Phase of No Man’s Sky Expedition 1: Pioneers. It’s a reasonably simple Milestone that can still trip up even experienced players if they ignore it. You’ll stumble on this Milestone and pay the price later in the Expedition if you’re trying to speedrun it, so it pays to complete it early on. This guide explains how to ensure you complete this Milestone before you leave your first system.

Scan every lifeform

To complete the Naturalist Milestone, you need to discover ten creatures. To do this, you’ll need to fully scan ten creatures that are either walking or flying around across the worlds you visit. However, you only need to scan a total of ten, not ten per planet, making this Milestone much easier to complete in the background.

The only stumbling block you might hit with this Milestone is your scanner. You need to repair it before using it, but you’ll only need simple resources like Ferrite Dust. Open your Multi-Tool menu and fix the scanner before you get too deep into exploring.

To discover a creature, you need to open your scanner and hold down the scan button while focusing on a single creature. This will bring up a loading bar that will gradually fill to 100%. When the bar hits 100%, the creature will count as discovered and appear in your Discovery menu. Do this with ten creatures as you explore, and the Milestone will be completed. Once it is, you can claim a Supreme Scanning System Upgrade and ten Creature Pellets from the Expedition menu.