Hello Games has released No Man’s Sky: Cosmos, a major free update built around one of the oldest parts of the game: space itself.

Cosmos is officially Update 7.0 and arrives as No Man’s Sky marks a decade since its original 2016 launch. Hello Games says space has remained fundamental to the game throughout those ten years, but it had never received an overhaul on the scale now introduced by Cosmos.

The update changes that by filling star systems with more persistent destinations, activities and opportunities for players to establish a presence away from planetary surfaces.

One of the biggest additions is space station directorship. Players can prove themselves to local authorities and take control of a space station, gaining the ability to customize its central lobby, expand it with additional rooms and decorate the station’s exterior.

That feature connects directly with a new alliance system. Station directors can form galactic alliances, invite other Travellers and build communities around networks of stations. Alliances can compete on leaderboards that measure factors such as population, activity and territory, giving player-run stations a broader role beyond serving as personal construction projects.

Cosmos also expands base building into open space. Players can create free-floating modular bases away from planets, including orbital facilities and other structures positioned against the backdrop of nearby worlds. Asteroid platforms provide another foundation for construction, allowing players to turn parts of deep space into permanent destinations.

Exploration has been reworked around a new star system map. The map reveals celestial bodies, the local space station and new deep-space points of interest, giving players a clearer way to navigate the expanded environments.

Those destinations include rocky and icy asteroid belts, inhabited outposts, infested outposts, debris fields and procedurally generated deep-space hulks. Many of these locations can be mined or stripped for resources, turning space itself into a more active exploration and salvage environment.

The hulks introduce an additional risk-reward element. Players can recover physical salvage from massive derelict structures, but damaging them too aggressively can compromise their structural integrity. The Gravitino Coil can be used to manipulate physical objects, while Corvette-class ships can equip a Tractor Beam that gathers and processes salvage and minerals recovered in deep space.

Deep-space outposts add another layer to the new loop. Outposts are managed by alien quartermasters and can provide maps, salvage services and contracts for explorers. Some have been overtaken by biological contamination, creating hazardous areas where players can clear invasive material and recover valuable samples.

Spacewalking has also been expanded. Hello Games says players now have true six-degrees-of-freedom movement while outside their ships in space, including roll, while explosions can physically knock Travellers back. Players can leave their ships through the Quick Menu and move through orbital environments more freely than before.

Another unusual addition finally makes the stars at the center of systems reachable. Players can attempt a long-distance flight toward these burning spheres of plasma, although Hello Games makes clear that getting too close is lethal.

Cosmos is also tied to Expedition Twenty-Three, Our Journey Continues, a special anniversary event that Hello Games says will begin shortly and run for approximately six weeks. Its milestones revisit major moments from the game’s history, with developer commentary narrated by Hello Games founder Sean Murray.

The expedition includes nostalgia-focused rewards such as commemorative framed artwork, a golden edition of the original Rasamama S36 starship, a vintage Sentinel Interceptor, the Starbound v0.27 Multi-Tool, an astronaut cockpit figurine and a diplodocus companion inspired by imagery from the game’s early promotional history.

Update 7.0 includes substantial rendering and performance work as well. The patch notes list support for Intel XeSS 3 and NVIDIA DLSS 4.5, including new Frame Generation options, alongside improvements to clouds viewed from space, asteroid generation, water, fog, lighting, color handling and other rendering systems.

Hello Games says Cosmos is free for existing No Man’s Sky players. The update is available across the game’s current platform lineup, including PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Mac and supported VR platforms.

The timing makes Cosmos particularly notable. No Man’s Sky is now ten years removed from its 2016 launch, yet Hello Games is still revisiting core systems rather than limiting support to smaller maintenance patches. Space has always connected the game’s planets and star systems, but Cosmos is designed to make that space more of a destination in its own right.

By combining player-run stations, alliances, orbital construction, salvage, outposts and a more detailed navigation layer, Update 7.0 shifts more of No Man’s Sky’s activity away from planetary surfaces. For a game that has spent a decade expanding its universe, Cosmos is an attempt to make the space between those worlds feel occupied, useful and worth exploring.

ARTICLE CREDIT:

News story written by Mike Lima.

Source/Further reading:

Primary source/reference link: https://www.nomanssky.com/2026/09/no-mans-sky-cosmos/