According to player reports, using the pre-order ship for Hello Games' space exploration and survival title No Man's Sky could lead to a game-breaking bug.

Those fans who reserved their copies of No Man's Sky before its launch earlier this week and wish to go ahead and claim the game's pre-order ship may need to be careful about how and when they do so. As discovered by the Reddit user and No Man's Sky player named hilightnotes, upon switching to the pre-order ship in the starting system prior to the game's hyperdrive tutorial, they're now stuck in a different area after using the hyperdrive to get there.

Once hilightnotes made their way into the different system, they decided to trade in No Man's Sky pre-order vessel for what they thought was a bigger, better ship with more storage, but no hyperdrive, not knowing that it would be an issue while completing the Tutorial for Warp Cell. After finishing all of what needed to be done to craft the Warp Cell, the game prompted hilightnotes to enact hyperdrive, but they couldn't do so due to their new ship lacking the feature.

As hilightnotes tells it, they "have been looking for a solution for many many hours," but to no avail. Apparently, No Man's Sky is causing this particular game-breaking bug to occur because the game now detects they haven't done the hyperdrive tutorial. However, the situation has become somewhat paradoxical, because it doesn't begin due to the player having acquired hyperdrive at one point from the pre-order ship. Furthermore, the game is showing that hilightnotes has not gone far enough for any of the ships, locations, or drops in that system to have hyperdrives to buy or find.

The Redditor hilightnotes isn't the only person in No Man's Sky who has experienced the bug involving the game's pre-order ship. According to other players, even if one doesn't want to use the pre-order bonus and wishes to begin the game spoiler-free, No Man's Sky will keep pestering gamers with notifications until it's tried out. While it hasn't been found yet, it's possible that there is in-game solution to the issue, but it seems to be a tiresome struggle in solving the problem.

Although a lot of players are unfortunately experiencing this bothersome bug, it's a quandary that's easy enough to avoid for those now in the know. Essentially, don't leave the starting system until after learning how to make hyperdrives. For a closer look at some other ideas on what to do at the beginning of No Man's Sky, check out our helpful guide on how to get started.

Since hilightnotes and the other No Man's Sky explorers are evidently still struggling with the pre-order ship bug, one can only hope that they have an earlier save game to use, as it's quite possible they may have to start over. With any luck, developer Hello Games will address the predicament with one of its future free updates to rectify the situation, but that remains to be seen. Additionally, considering that this difficulty has only been encountered by No Man's Sky players on PlayStation 4, it's anyone's guess as to whether or not it will affect the PC version on its release date this Friday.

No Man's Sky is out now for PlayStation 4, and it is set to release on August 12, 2016 for PC.

Source: Reddit (via GamesRadar)