Hello Games released its next major update for No Man’s Sky (2016), introducing large-scale faction warfare, community objectives, and the game’s biggest space battles to date.
Called ‘The Swarm’, the update arrives ahead of No Man’s Sky’s 10th anniversary in August, centering around a new threat known as the ‘Hive of Glass’, a massive structure appearing in planetary skies across the galaxy.
The studio says in a PS blogpost that players are divided into three factions through a personality test at login, with each group tasked with cooperating and competing in a shared war effort against the new enemy.
Community progress will be tracked through the Nexus, the Space Anomaly, and the Galactic Atlas, Hello Games says, with the most successful faction receiving a permanent memorial within the Space Anomaly.
And it’s shaping up to be a war of galactic proportions, as The Swarm introduces battles featuring “hundreds of ships,” with the Hive deploying robotic drone swarms and a new superweapon capable of destroying freighter fleets and potentially space station-sized targets.
Additionally, the update expands planetary gameplay, allowing players to salvage crashed drones, investigate swarm activity, and sabotage enemy networks using the Gravity Gun introduced earlier this year.
Gathered research can be shared across the player community to uncover the Hive’s origins and weaknesses; new rewards include a retro-inspired armor set, a new rifle, an upgraded jetpack, and additional cosmetic items tied to the event.
The Swarm update is the game’s third this year, following Remnant in February, which added the ‘Gravitino Coil’ gravity gun, expanded physics interactions, salvage systems, and Colossus customization. Then, in April, the studio introduced Xeno Arena, a Pokémon-style pet battling game that frankly wasn’t on anyone’s Bingo card this year.
You can see the full list of features coming in The Swarm update over on the official patch notes. You can also find No Man’s Sky available for PSVR 2 on the PlayStation Store, and PC VR headsets on Steam.