No Man's Sky Updates: What's New in 2026

Part of the Tips & Tricks series:

• No Man's Sky Tips & Tricks Guide Hub: Start here.
• What Are Expeditions and How Do They Work: Every major update ships alongside a limited-time expedition.

Quick Answer

• No Man's Sky is still receiving free updates in 2026, continuing a pattern that began at launch in 2016.
• Worlds Part I (Jul 2024) overhauled water, terrain, clouds, and lighting, and set the direction for gas giants.
• Worlds Part II (late 2024) delivered explorable gas giants, dramatically larger planets, and new purple star systems.
• Orbital (Apr 2024) added ship building and customization plus fully reworked, procedurally generated space stations.
• Aquarius (Jun 2024) introduced fishing as a full activity across planets, oceans, and space.
• Recent 2025-2026 updates have continued adding new ships, activities, and quality-of-life improvements, and this timeline is kept current as they land.
• The next major update is named Cosmos, revealed on 10 August 2026 during the game's tenth anniversary. No release date or feature list has been published.
• Every update remains free, and your existing save continues to work.

Overview

Hello Games shipped No Man's Sky in August 2016, and rather than moving on, the studio committed to a long run of free content updates. That model has held for nearly a decade. Major updates arrive several times a year, usually paired with a limited-time expedition that gives returning players a fresh goal and exclusive rewards.

The pace picked up sharply from 2023 onward. Updates now tend to cluster around named themes: some rework core systems like terrain or space stations, some add entirely new activities like fishing, and some expand the sheer scale of the universe. Because everything is free and backwards-compatible, jumping back in after a long break usually means your save is intact and a pile of new features is waiting. This page tracks the headline changes in reverse-chronological order so you can see what you missed at a glance.

What's Announced Next: Cosmos

On 10 August 2026, as part of the tenth anniversary, Hello Games named its next major free update Cosmos. That is very nearly the whole of the public information.

What is confirmed:

The naming alone is a departure worth noting. Hello Games almost never pre-announces updates; the usual pattern is a trailer and a same-day release, which is why this page normally has nothing to say about the future. Cosmos is the exception, and even so the studio has released a name and nothing else.

Treat any feature list you see attached to Cosmos as speculation until Hello Games publishes one. The last verified live build is 6.45.1 (22 June 2026). This section is updated when the studio says something new, not when the community guesses.

The Timeline

Updates are listed newest-first. Dates are approximate release windows; point releases and hotfixes between these are omitted for clarity.

The Swarm (6.4, May 2026)

The most recent major update, and the one most likely to be live when you read this. A new enemy faction called the Swarm arrived alongside an eight-week community campaign in which the whole player base cooperates to build the technology needed to bring down the Hive of Glass, an enormous alien ship that parks outside planetary atmospheres and fires a laser capable of erasing freighter fleets. The campaign splits players into three factions: the Royals, the Sages, and the Weavers.

Space combat was reworked to support it, and those changes are permanent even after the campaign ends: better enemy AI flight patterns, an auto-follow boost for staying on an agile target, and critical hit zones that reward aimed fire. Rewards include the six-piece Direwasp armour set, a flight pack, and a rifle multi-tool. Full detail is in the Swarm update guide.

Xeno Arena (6.30, April 2026)

Turn-based creature battles, fought with the companions you have tamed. Holo-Arenas appear on space stations and in the Nexus aboard the Space Anomaly, where you can face NPC opponents or challenge other players. Creatures gained elemental affinities drawn from their species and home world, hundreds of new abilities were added, and the companion cap rose from 18 to 30. A new NPC, Iteration: Oceanus, joined the Anomaly as a fellow collector. See the Xeno Arena guide.

Remnant (6.2, February 2026)

The first update of the game's tenth-anniversary year, released 11 February 2026 on every current platform including Switch 2. Its headline is the Gravitino Coil, a gravity-manipulation module for the Multi-Tool that grabs large objects so you can fling, toss, or carry them, and doubles as a ballistic weapon by turning heavy objects into projectiles.

Remnant also added industrial waste salvaging on scrap worlds and rebuilt the Colossus Exocraft around hauling, with new customisation modules and a dedicated waste-processing loop. A Remnant Expedition ran alongside it, and patch 6.22 followed later that month. See the Remnant and Gravitino Coil guide.

Voyagers (6.0, August 2025)

The update that let players build their own starship. Corvette-class ships are assembled part by part at a Corvette Workshop aboard space stations, from hull sections and wings down to interior corridors and bunks. They carry passengers, support furnished rooms such as med-bays and war rooms, and can be exited mid-flight for a spacewalk around the hull. Supporting it required substantial engine work. The Corvette guide covers building one.

Relics (5.6, March 2025)

Paleontology. Fossils are excavated from dig sites on land and on the ocean floor using your multi-tool, then reassembled into complete skeletons and displayed at your base like a museum. A Fossil Collector NPC on space stations trades unwanted bones and sells missing pieces, and fragments can be traded between players. The update also introduced colossal enemies made of stone and bone. See the paleontology guide.

For settings worth revisiting after any big patch, see the best quality-of-life settings guide.

Worlds Part II (late 2024)

Worlds Part II pushed scale in a way few updates have. Planets became substantially larger, gas giants turned into genuinely explorable worlds rather than distant set dressing, and new purple star systems opened up regions of the galaxy that previously required special conditions to reach. The visual and terrain groundwork laid in Part I paid off here, with more dramatic vistas and weather. It is a good moment to revisit older systems, since the generation changes reshaped a lot of what you may remember.

The Cursed (Oct 2024)

The Cursed was a seasonal, Halloween-flavored expedition. Like other expeditions, it ran for a limited window with its own themed rewards. If you missed it live, expedition replay (introduced with Omega) means older expeditions can often be revisited later. New to the format? Start with the expeditions explainer.

Worlds Part I (Jul 2024)

Worlds Part I was primarily a visual and environmental overhaul. Water rendering, terrain generation, cloud systems, and lighting all saw major work, and the update signaled the direction toward the gas giants that arrived in Part II. Existing planets took on a different character, with deeper oceans and more convincing skies. It is a foundational update: much of what makes the later 2024 releases impressive rests on the tech introduced here.

Aquarius (Jun 2024)

Aquarius made fishing a real activity. You can fish across planetary bodies of water and even in space, with different catches tied to conditions like time of day and biome. It added a relaxed loop that sits nicely alongside exploration, and it rewards patience with unique items. For bait, timing, and rare-catch tips, see the dedicated fishing guide.

Adrift (May 2024)

Adrift was a limited-time expedition set in a desolate, stripped-down version of the universe, with a strong focus on your ship and survival. Its rewards leaned into that isolated, salvage-heavy theme. Expeditions like this are self-contained journeys with fixed milestones, which makes them an efficient way to earn cosmetic and functional rewards in a short span.

Orbital (Apr 2024)

Orbital was a landmark quality-of-life and creativity update. It introduced ship building and customization, letting you assemble and personalize starships rather than only finding them in the wild. It also reworked space stations, making them procedurally generated with far more variety in layout and appearance instead of the repeated interiors players had seen for years. If you want to understand how the different hull classes fit together before customizing, the starship types explainer breaks them down.

Omega (Feb 2024)

Omega centered on accessibility. It brought back expedition replay so players could tackle past expeditions on their own schedule, and it ran a free trial weekend that let newcomers try the full game at no cost. It was as much an invitation to lapsed and new players as it was a content drop.

Guides for Recent Features

Deep dives on the newest systems: the Swarm campaign, Xeno Arena creature battles, Corvette ship building from Voyagers, and fossil hunting from Relics.

The Tenth Anniversary

No Man's Sky launched on 9 August 2016. The game passed ten years old in August 2026, and the anniversary was marked in two ways.

The community gathering. Players organised a synchronised login for 9 August 2026 at 18:00 UTC, aiming to push concurrent players back toward the record set during the game's launch week. It was a community initiative rather than a Hello Games event, and the studio amplified it rather than running it.

The Cosmos reveal. The following day, 10 August 2026, Hello Games named its next major free update: Cosmos. Sean Murray used the anniversary press round to talk about the decade of free updates and about Light No Fire, the studio's other project. No Cosmos feature list or date came with the name.

What ten years of this actually means for a returning player is simpler than the update list suggests. Every one of the updates in the timeline above was free, none of them invalidated an existing save, and the game you bought in 2016 is the game you can still load. If you have been away since launch, see platforms and versions for what your copy entitles you to, and the beginner's hub for what has changed since.

FAQ

Is No Man's Sky still getting updates?

Yes. As of 2026, Hello Games continues to release free updates, and the studio has repeatedly stated its commitment to supporting the game long-term. The cadence has been several major updates per year, usually with expeditions in between.

Are the updates free?

Every content update since launch has been free. There is no season pass, no paid expansion, and no separate DLC storefront. Buying the base game grants access to everything released so far and everything that follows.

Do updates reset or break my save?

No. Updates are backwards-compatible, so your existing save carries forward. Occasionally a large update regenerates parts of the universe, which can change the terrain or resources around a base, but your progress, inventory, and unlocks remain intact. It is still sensible to note your base locations before jumping into a major patch.

How do I update the game?

Updates download automatically through your platform's store (Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, or the relevant storefront) as long as automatic updates are enabled. On PC you may need to launch the client to trigger the download. Once installed, the new content is available the next time you load in.

What is the Cosmos update and when does it release?

Cosmos is the name Hello Games gave its next major free update, announced on 10 August 2026 alongside the game's tenth anniversary. The studio published the name and nothing else: no feature list, no trailer, no date. It is not expected during 2026. Anything more specific circulating about its contents is speculation.

What is the best update to come back for?

If you have been away since before 2024, the Worlds pair is the strongest reason to return: the environmental overhaul and the jump in planetary scale change how the whole game looks and feels. Pair that with Orbital's ship building and Aquarius fishing, and there is a lot of new ground to cover. To get around it faster, the exocraft vehicles guide is worth a look.

Key Takeaways

• No Man's Sky has delivered free updates continuously since 2016, and that has not changed heading through 2026.
• The 2024 run was dense: Omega, Orbital, Adrift, Aquarius, Worlds Part I, The Cursed, and Worlds Part II each added meaningful features.
• Worlds Part I and Part II together reshaped the universe's visuals and scale, making older systems worth revisiting.
• Orbital's ship building and reworked space stations, plus Aquarius fishing, added lasting new activities.
• Recent 2025-2026 updates have continued adding ships, activities, and refinements; this timeline is updated as new releases land.
• All updates are free and save-compatible, so returning players lose nothing by jumping back in.