Part of the Combat series:

Combat Guide Hub: Start here.

Space Combat & Dogfighting Guide: The fundamentals these fights build on.

Quick Answer

The Swarm is update 6.4, released 27 May 2026 on PC, PlayStation and Mac, and 9 June 2026 on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.
It built around an eight-week time-limited community campaign in which the entire player base cooperated and competed to defend the universe from waves of elite, agile enemy ships.
The campaign boss is the Hive of Glass, a massive alien starship that lurks just outside planetary atmospheres and opens a giant iris to fire an enormous laser.
Players were split into three factions: The Royals, The Sages, and The Weavers, assigned by a short in-game quiz rather than chosen, and had to build the Prismatic Core together to bring the Hive down.
Space combat changes are permanent: improved enemy AI flight patterns, an auto-follow boost, and a critical hit zone mechanic that rewards aimed fire.
Rewards were time-limited: a six-piece Direwasp armour set, a flight pack, and a rifle multi-tool.
Event window: the campaign ran roughly eight weeks from the 27 May 2026 launch, which places the finish line in late July 2026. Check the in-game news feed or Hello Games' official channels to confirm whether it is currently live.

Overview

The Swarm was the headline No Man's Sky update of mid-2026, and it worked differently from a normal content patch. Instead of dropping a new biome or ship class and leaving players to explore at their own pace, Hello Games ran a universe-wide siege on a clock. Elite enemy ships attacked in waves, a colossal alien vessel called the Hive of Glass hung over planets charging a fleet-killing laser, and the only route to stopping it ran through the community as a whole building the counter-technology together.

Two things came out of it. The campaign itself, with its factions and rewards, was time-limited. The combat systems that shipped alongside it were not, and they remain in the game for everyone whether or not the siege is currently running. Follow-up patches ran through 6.45.1 in late June 2026. For where 6.4 sits among this year's releases, the 2026 updates roundup tracks the sequence.

What the Swarm Is

The Swarm refers to the enemy itself: waves of elite, agile enemy ships that behave nothing like the pirate raiders most players are used to swatting. They are faster, they hold formation better, and they punish the lazy habit of parking behind a target and holding the trigger.

Those ships were the delivery mechanism for the campaign. Fighting them fed into a shared community effort rather than only into your own wallet. The exact phase structure and milestone list varied over the run and were surfaced in game, so treat any fixed list you find elsewhere with suspicion and check the official channels instead.

Why the New Space Combat Systems Matter

Three changes landed with 6.4, and they change how a dogfight actually plays.

Better enemy AI flight patterns. Enemy ships break off and reposition rather than flying predictable arcs. The consequence for you is that stationary aim no longer works. You have to fly the fight.

Auto-follow boost. This helps you stay locked onto an agile target that is trying to shake you. Against Swarm ships, keeping a target in frame instead of losing it every few seconds is the difference between clearing a wave and burning your entire fuel reserve chasing one ship.

Critical hit zones. Aimed fire now beats sprayed fire. Hitting the right part of an enemy ship rewards significantly better damage than blanket fire across the hull, which shifts weapon choice toward precision. The fundamentals in the space combat and dogfighting guide still apply, with critical zones sitting on top of them.

The Hive of Glass

The Hive of Glass is the campaign's boss: a massive alien starship that lurks just outside planetary atmospheres. Its defining feature is a giant iris that opens to fire an enormous laser, powerful enough to wipe out freighter fleets. It is the largest weapon of its kind seen in No Man's Sky.

That scale is the point. A single pilot in a single ship is not the answer to it. The campaign framed the Hive as a problem the community had to solve by strategising together to construct the technology needed to defeat it, which is why the update leaned on shared progress rather than individual grinding. If you have fought a pirate dreadnought or capital ship, that is the closest point of comparison, and the Hive dwarfs it.

Element Reference

Element	What it is	What to do about it
Swarm ships	Waves of elite, agile enemy craft	Use auto-follow boost to hold the target, aim for critical hit zones instead of spraying
Hive of Glass	Massive alien starship outside the atmosphere with an iris-mounted laser	A community-scale target, not a solo kill; contribute to the shared construction effort
The iris laser	Enormous beam capable of wiping out freighter fleets	Do not park a freighter fleet in its line of fire; treat the charge-up as your cue to move
Community construction	Shared effort to build the tech needed to beat the Hive	Check in-game progress and official channels for the current phase and target
Factions	The Royals (red), The Sages (green), The Weavers (blue)	Assigned by a short in-game quiz, not chosen. Your ship and uniform recolour to match
Rewards	Six-piece Direwasp armour set, flight pack, rifle multi-tool	Time-limited to the campaign window; may return in a rerun

The Three Factions

You do not pick a faction. A short quiz early in the campaign assigns you to one, and there are no wrong answers: your ship and uniform simply recolour to match whichever group you land in.

Faction	Colour	Theme
The Royals	Red	Authority and command
The Sages	Green	Knowledge and insight
The Weavers	Blue	Connection and creation

The split is a competitive layer sitting on top of a cooperative one. All three factions have to contribute to the same Prismatic Core construction before the final battle unlocks, so nobody wins by holding back, but each is measured on how much it contributed.

What that competition decides is narrow. Every faction earns the same core rewards, and the shared poster set goes to everyone regardless of allegiance. The faction flag is the only cosmetic tied to your assignment, and one faction is memorialised in the Space Anomaly for topping the contribution table. So the stakes are bragging rights and a flag, not power.

The Rewards

Three reward categories came out of the campaign:

A six-piece Direwasp armour set, the visual centrepiece of the event.
A flight pack.
A rifle multi-tool.

These were tied to the campaign window. Hello Games has a long history of bringing limited content back in reruns, which the expedition archive documents across dozens of past events, so missing the original run is rarely permanent. That is not a guarantee, and there is no announced rerun date to point you at.

How to Prepare

Preparation here is ordinary combat readiness rather than anything Swarm-specific.

Ship weapons. Critical hit zones favour weapons you can place precisely. Get your damage upgrades properly slotted rather than scattered; the supercharged slots and technology upgrades guide covers adjacency and supercharge stacking, the largest multiplier available to you.

Shields. Elite agile ships land more hits on you than pirate waves do. Shield capacity buys the time to reposition.

Ship class. A high-class Fighter remains the sensible baseline for sustained space combat. The S-class ship guide walks through hunting one down if your current hull is holding you back.

Fundamentals. Braking turns, shield-first targeting and velocity control did not change in 6.4. The combat hub links the full set.

FAQ

What is The Swarm update?

The Swarm is No Man's Sky update 6.4, released 27 May 2026 on PC, PlayStation and Mac, and 9 June 2026 on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. It centred on an eight-week time-limited community campaign in which the whole player base cooperated and competed to defend the universe from waves of elite, agile enemy ships. Follow-up patches ran through 6.45.1 in late June 2026.

What is the Hive of Glass?

The Hive of Glass is the campaign's boss: a massive alien starship that lurks just outside planetary atmospheres. It has a giant iris that opens to fire an enormous laser, powerful enough to wipe out freighter fleets, and it is the largest weapon of its type in the game. Defeating it required players to strategise together and construct the necessary technology as a community.

Which faction should I pick?

You do not choose. A short in-game quiz assigns you to The Royals, The Sages, or The Weavers, and no answer is wrong. Your ship and uniform recolour to your faction automatically. Since every faction earns the same core rewards, there is nothing to optimise: the only cosmetic tied to your assignment is the faction flag.

Is the event still running?

The campaign ran for eight weeks from the 27 May 2026 launch, placing the end in late July 2026. Because the window is tight and reruns are possible, confirm the current status through the in-game news feed or Hello Games' official channels rather than relying on any static page.

What stays after the event ends?

The space combat improvements are permanent: better enemy AI flight patterns, the auto-follow boost, and the critical hit zone mechanic. The campaign, the Hive of Glass encounter and the reward set were time-limited, though past limited content has returned in reruns.

Key Takeaways

The Swarm (6.4) paired a time-limited eight-week community siege with permanent combat system changes, and only the second half is guaranteed to still be there when you log in.
Critical hit zones and the auto-follow boost reward precision flying over sustained spray, which is worth rebuilding a loadout around regardless of the campaign's status.
The Hive of Glass was designed as a community-scale problem, with its iris laser capable of erasing freighter fleets, so shared construction rather than solo damage was the intended solution.
A quiz assigns your faction, so there is no build decision to get wrong. Every faction earns the same core rewards, and only the flag is exclusive.
Direwasp armour, the flight pack and the rifle multi-tool were campaign rewards, and Hello Games' track record with reruns makes a second chance plausible without being promised.

No Man's Sky The Swarm Update: Hive of Glass, Factions & Rewards