Part of the series:
- No Man's Sky Tips & Tricks: Hub for multiplayer, QoL, rewards, and hidden questlines.
- No Man's Sky Beginner's Guide (2026): Start your journey and learn core systems.
Quick Answer
- Steam and Xbox have 27 achievements. PlayStation has 28 trophies: the same 27 plus the platinum, Total Perspective Vortex.
- There are no story achievements. Nothing unlocks for finishing the Artemis Path, the Atlas Path or the Purge. Every achievement is a milestone count, a survival target, or one of five one-off actions.
- The two hardest are To Live Forever (galaxy centre in Permadeath, 0.8% of Steam players) and Take a Deep Breath (galaxy centre in Survival, 1.3%).
- Money milestones are not cumulative. You must hold 150,000 / 1,000,000 / 2,000,000 units at one time.
- Several in-game descriptions cite the wrong milestone rank, so the pop threshold is not what the game tells you. The table below uses tested values.
- Creative Mode disables progression achievements. Use Normal or Custom.
Overview
No Man's Sky has a small, stable achievement list that has barely changed since launch, and almost all of it is built on the game's milestone ranks: warp counts, words learned, aliens met, ships destroyed, units held, distance walked, fauna scanned and sols survived. Five sit outside that system and unlock from a single action.
Most of the list arrives on its own if you play normally for fifty hours. The interesting question is which ones will not, and that is a shorter list than the completion percentages suggest.
The Complete List
Sorted rarest first, so the top of the table is your actual work queue. Percentages are global unlock rates on Steam and Xbox as of August 2026.
| # | Name | Requirement | PS tier | Steam % | Xbox % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | To Live Forever | Reach the galaxy centre in Permadeath | Gold | 0.8 | 0.1 |
| 2 | Take a Deep Breath | Reach the galaxy centre in Survival | Gold | 1.3 | 0.2 |
| 3 | The Sentinel | Survive 32 sols on extreme worlds ("Everlasting") | Gold | 1.7 | 0.4 |
| 4 | Galapagos | Scan all fauna on 10 planets ("Encyclopedia") | Gold | 3.1 | 0.7 |
| 5 | Stranger in a Strange Land | Survive 20 sols on extreme worlds ("Robust") | Silver | 2.9 | 0.8 |
| 6 | The Star Beast | Scan all fauna on 7 planets ("Archivist") | Silver | 3.9 | 0.9 |
| 7 | A Space Odyssey | Warp 75 times ("Discoverer") | Gold | 14 | 4.3 |
| 8 | A Scanner Darkly | Scan all fauna on 1 planet ("Naturalist") | Bronze | 14 | 3.8 |
| 9 | Citizen of the Galaxy | Learn 150 words ("Babelfish") | Gold | 19 | 5.3 |
| 10 | Reunion | Visit another player's base | Bronze | 20 | 7.3 |
| 11 | What Mad Universe | Meet 80 unique aliens ("Ambassador") | Gold | 22 | 6.6 |
| 12 | The Forever War | Destroy 80 ships ("Legend") | Gold | 22 | 7.7 |
| 13 | The Longest Voyage | Warp 40 times ("Pioneer") | Silver | 21 | 6.9 |
| 14 | Pattern for Conquest | Destroy 50 ships ("Notorious") | Silver | 29 | 10 |
| 15 | Who Goes There? | Meet 50 unique aliens ("Diplomat") | Silver | 31 | 9.7 |
| 16 | Have Spacesuit – Will Travel | Travel 100,000u on foot ("Adventurer") | Gold | 31 | 11 |
| 17 | Navigators | Build an exocraft | Bronze | 31 | 12 |
| 18 | The Languages of Pao | Learn 50 words ("Interpreter") | Silver | 35 | 11 |
| 19 | The Stars, Like Dust | Warp 5 times ("Trailblazer") | Bronze | 45 | 17 |
| 20 | The Diamond Age | Hold 2,000,000 units at once ("Magnate") | Gold | 46 | 18 |
| 21 | Symphony For A Lost Traveler | Travel 40,000u on foot ("Nomad") | Silver | 48 | 19 |
| 22 | The Space Merchants | Hold 1,000,000 units at once ("Trader") | Silver | 50 | 20 |
| 23 | Use of Weapons | Destroy 5 ships ("Novice") | Bronze | 51 | 21 |
| 24 | Contact | Meet 10 unique aliens ("Known") | Bronze | 54 | 20 |
| 25 | Babel-17 | Learn 10 words ("Confused") | Bronze | 55 | 21 |
| 26 | Foundation | Hold 150,000 units at once ("Entrepreneur") | Bronze | 61 | 26 |
| 27 | Cradle | Claim a base or buy a freighter | Bronze | 73 | 39 |
| — | Total Perspective Vortex | Earn all 27 (PlayStation only) | Platinum | — | — |
The names are all science-fiction novel titles, which is why several of them describe nothing about what you have to do. Babel-17 is ten words of alien language. Cradle is claiming a base.
Where trophy trackers disagree
Counts vary across sites and all of them are describing the same 27. PlayStation groups the five one-off trophies (Reunion, Navigators, Cradle, To Live Forever, Take a Deep Breath) as a separate pack on some trackers, which is why you will see "23 base + 5" instead of 28.
More importantly, the community wiki's trophy table lists different thresholds to the ones above, including "warp 3 times" for The Stars, Like Dust and "destroy 1 starship" for Use of Weapons. The specialist trophy sites, which document the actual pop points against the in-game milestone ranks, give 5 and 5. We have gone with the specialist figures. If a trophy fails to pop where you expected it, that discrepancy is the likely reason.
The Five That Are Not Milestones
Everything else accumulates. These do not, and three of them are trivially fast:
| Achievement | What actually unlocks it |
|---|---|
| Cradle | Claim any base computer, or buy any freighter. Fifteen minutes into a save. |
| Navigators | Build a single exocraft. See the exocraft guide. |
| Reunion | Visit another player's base. Featured bases on the Space Anomaly do not count. You need a base uploaded by a player, reached through the teleporter's list of visited bases or a friend's session. |
| To Live Forever | Galaxy centre in Permadeath. |
| Take a Deep Breath | Galaxy centre in Survival. |
Reunion is where most players stall without realising, because the Anomaly's featured-base gallery looks like it should count and does not.
The Traps
Money milestones require a simultaneous balance. Holding 2,000,000 units at one time is the requirement, not earning 2,000,000 in total. If you are spending as you earn, the counter never moves. Bank it before a big purchase. The money-making hub covers the fastest routes; a single Activated Indium run clears all three tiers.
The in-game descriptions cite the wrong ranks. Several trophies name a milestone status whose real pop threshold is a different rank entirely. Use the table above rather than the description text.
Extreme-sol survival must be on extreme worlds. The Sentinel and Stranger in a Strange Land count sols survived on planets flagged extreme, not sols in general. Sitting in a base does not stop the clock, so pairing this with a long base building session on an extreme planet is the efficient play.
Fauna scanning can break. A scanning glitch has surfaced in some builds where the Analysis Visor stops registering creatures you have already scanned, which blocks A Scanner Darkly and therefore Galapagos. If a planet shows 100% scanned but the achievement does not fire, reload before assuming you missed one.
Cross-save does not carry achievements. Save data moves between platforms; the achievement list does not. Starting again on a second platform means earning all 27 again. See cross-save and cross-platform.
Efficient Order
- Play normally to the galaxy centre on Normal. This clears most of the warp, word, alien and ship-destruction ranks without effort.
- Bank units once. Reach 2,000,000 and hold it. Foundation and The Space Merchants pop on the way through.
- Clean up the counters. Words at Knowledge Stones, aliens at space stations, warps by chaining short jumps.
- Scan ten planets fully. Galapagos is the longest grind on the list. The Analysis Visor guide covers doing it efficiently, and it pays units while you go.
- Do 32 sols on an extreme world. Build a shelter and get on with something else.
- Survival, then Permadeath. Both need their own save. The Permadeath and Survival guide covers staying alive; the galaxy centre guide covers getting there fast.
Permadeath last, and treat it as a speedrun rather than a playthrough. Nothing in it requires a developed save.
Milestones Are a Separate Track
Platform achievements and the game's own Journey Milestones are different systems, and progress in one does not fill the other. The milestones, journey and catalogue guide covers the in-game trackers and what they pay out.
FAQ
How many achievements does No Man's Sky have?
27 on Steam and Xbox. 28 on PlayStation, where the platinum trophy Total Perspective Vortex is added for earning the other 27. Some trackers split the list as "23 + 5" because PlayStation groups five of them separately.
Are there achievements for finishing the story?
No. Nothing unlocks for completing the Artemis Path, the Atlas Path, the Purge or any other questline. It surprises people, and it means a story-focused playthrough can end with a fairly empty achievement list.
Can I earn achievements in Creative Mode?
No. Creative Mode disables progression achievements. Use it for building experiments, not trophy hunting.
What is the hardest achievement?
To Live Forever, reaching the galaxy centre in Permadeath, unlocked by 0.8% of Steam players and 0.1% on Xbox. Death ends the save and you start the run again.
Can I earn all achievements in one save?
No. To Live Forever and Take a Deep Breath require Permadeath and Survival saves specifically, so a full clear needs at least three saves.
Why has my trophy not popped at the number the game showed?
Several in-game descriptions name a milestone rank whose real threshold is different, and the community wiki repeats some incorrect figures. Check the table above. If you are past the listed number and it still has not fired, the fauna-scanning glitch is the other common cause.
Key Takeaways
- 27 achievements, 28 PlayStation trophies, and none of them are for the story.
- The money milestones need a simultaneous balance, not lifetime earnings.
- Reunion needs a real player's base. Featured bases on the Anomaly do not count.
- Galapagos (ten fully scanned planets) is the longest grind; Permadeath is the hardest single run.
- Trust the tested thresholds over both the in-game text and the community wiki, which disagree with each other.