Abandoned mode is underbaked. Here's why

In short, Hello Games opted to straight up exclude massive portions of the game's content from abandoned mode, even content introduced in this same update, instead of introducing workarounds to access the content in abandoned mode, which would have required extra work

It was a massive disappointment to realize that gas giants are completely inaccessible in abandoned mode. When I downloaded the update and started playing, I thought I might as well do a new playthrough in the abandoned mode to shake up the experience a little, since I have already played the game for hundreds of hours. I was interested in feeling that sense of true desolation that was more present in old versions of the game. I didnt realize it would come at the cost of dumbing down the experience of playing the game as a whole, far beyond just removing the ability to talk to NPCs. Huge portions of the game are just missing. Portions that make sense if you think about how that content is accessed and how it works, which is through NPCs. Such as the freighters. But a far better solution for freighters for example, would have been to introduce alternate method acquiring a freighter specifically tailored for abandoned mode

When I began my playthrough, I didnt even know yet that finding gas giants in general is locked behind a quest that involves NPCs which automatically makes it unavailable in abandoned mode. Thats the problem here. If you know exactly how the game works in an out, you could accurately predict everything that will be unavailable to you in abandoned mode. But thats not a realistic expectation of even experienced users, with how much content this game has gotten throughout the years. There is nothing about the mere existence of gas giants that would have made it immediately obvious that they're not available in abandoned mode

With some effort, abandoned mode could become a truly unique experience. But it requires that effort. Right now, it feels more like a gimmick, than a real way to play the game which is disappointing