Hello Games is not done with No Man's Sky - not by a long shot. The studio has just rolled out The Swarm, a free update (version 6.4) that plunges the galaxy into war and delivers what the team is calling its biggest and most epic space battles to date.
It is the latest in a now-legendary run of free post-launch content that has carried the survival-exploration game from its rocky 2016 launch to one of gaming's great redemption stories - and The Swarm leans hard into spectacle.
The Hive of Glass arrives
The centrepiece is the Hive of Glass, a monstrous alien starship the developers describe as an existential threat to the universe. It hangs ominously just outside the atmosphere of planets, obliterating any Traveller who drifts too close. Bringing it down is no small feat: players must pilot through a deadly rotating wheel of lasers to expose and strike its vulnerable core.
Rather than fight alone, the Hive defends itself by unleashing swarms of small, agile robotic drone ships - creating chaotic dogfights involving hundreds of vessels at once. Reviewers have already noted a dash of Helldivers 2 flavour in the update's galaxy-wide war framing.
Expedition 22 and new rewards
Anchoring the update is Expedition 22: The Swarm, a community event running for roughly eight weeks. Players are sorted into one of three teams of Travellers, each handed a ship and a uniform in their team colours, and every team must pull together to unlock the final battle. Completing it unlocks a fresh batch of rewards, including the Direwasp armour set, the Direwasp Flightpack, the Hive of Glass alien starship, new ground enemies and rival team encounters.
As ever, The Swarm is a free update for all existing players, available now on PlayStation 5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch and Mac. Nearly a decade on, Hello Games' commitment to its universe shows no sign of slowing.
