After much teasing and speculation, No Man’s Sky‘s 10th anniversary Cosmos update is here and, yup, it’s a big ‘un, bringing a “complete overhaul of space” – which mean, among other things, alliances, orbital bases, the ability to purchase and live in your own space station, and you can finally fly to the sun.
“No Man’s Sky is often referred to as ‘a Space Game’, explains Hello Games in its Cosmos unveiling. “It’s a huge part of our game, but we’ve never really updated space since release. In most sci-fi games, space is just an empty void. With Cosmos we wondered – can we make space feel truly alive? And could we make space feel more like home? What if you could own a space station? If you could build star bases, and create alliances with other players.”
And that’s what today’s update brings. As far as space station ownership goes, once you’ve purchased one in your solar system of choice, you can decorate it inside out then invite your friends to enjoy your creative whims.
Alternatively, you can now build free-floating modular bases anywhere in space, with Hello Games suggesting you might like to create your own star ship truck stop for star ships, military outpost, or perhaps even an orbital restaurant at the end of – well you know how that goes.
Asteroid belts, meanwhile, have had a bit of a do-over, and can now consist of both rock and ice formations that provide intrepid space wanderers with valuable crystal resources. Some rare asteroids are even large enough to land on – which does, of course, mean they’re also large enough to build on…
And scanning a new system on entry means you might find new points-of-interest among the stars. Space now contains its own outposts, for instance, where you can trade with alien lifeforms, buy maps, get information about the area, take on new missions and more.
Additionally, you can find space hulks that can be stripped and salvaged using the new gravity gun. Any scrap you successfully secure can be thrown at your ship’s newly introduced tractor beam, but some caution is required. Get too greedy, and you might cause the hulk to meltdown and explode. Elsewhere, space now contains bio-wrecks, some of which have been overwhelmed by biological hazards that may need to be cleared out in order to reclaim. And finally, there’s the system’s sun, which – for the first time since launch – is apparently now reachable, although a “perilous journey” awaits those who try.
And tying all this together, as if there wasn’t already enough to be getting on with, is a new alliance system. “As an alliance,” explains Hello, “you can work together to build a networked empire of different stations and rise the new leaderboards to compete for the largest, richest or most prominent alliance.”
But we’re still not quite done. In one final 10th anniversary flourish, today’s release arrives alongside a new limited-time expedition. It’s called – echoing No Man’s Sky’s long-standing mantra – ‘Our Journey Continues’, and seeing players working toward different milestones that each represents one of the exploratory space sim’s 40 major updates since launch in 2016.
“It is like a museum of each update,” adds Hello Games, “unlocking the features of each update as we added them, along with a spacelog of interesting facts and developers commentary for each update. It’s been a real joy to revisit some of those moments for us.”
So there you go! No Man’s Sky’s Cosmos update launches today on all platforms (that’s – brace yourself – PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 1&2, Mac, PSVR 1&2, PC VR and Game Pass), and full patch notes can be found on Hello Games’ website. And if you’re in the mood for a bit more celebratory reading, Eurogamer recently spoke to the No Man’s Sky players building utopia at the end of the universe – and it’s a fascinating story.
