Hello Games has introduced a major new update for No Man’s Sky called The Swarm, which brings a massive and unsettling new feature to the game’s universe. The update adds a “mysterious Death Star-like construct” visible in the skies above planets, described by the developer as “something new, huge and foreboding” unlike anything players have seen before. Detailed patch notes for the update are available on the official No Man’s Sky website.
According to Hello Games founder Sean Murray, players will need to work together to uncover what the construct is and how to stop it. Upon starting the game, players will take a personality test that divides them into one of three factions. Each faction must cooperate, strategize and compete to counter the Hive of Glass, an existential threat that could destroy the universe. Murray noted that the challenge ahead will require a combined community effort. “Players are going to need a combined community effort to figure out what is going on,” he said.
A coordinated war effort is launching from the Nexus, with defenses being built rapidly and progress tracked on a new bulletin page. Contributions to the fight will be recorded for all players to see in both the Anomaly and the Galactic Atlas. The most effective faction will be immortalized in the Space Anomaly. Murray added, “Travelers will boot up to be greeted with a personality test, dividing players into three factions, each of which will need to cooperate, strategize and compete to counter the Hive of Glass, an existential threat to the universe.”
The update introduces what Hello Games calls the “biggest and most epic space battles to date.” The Hive of Glass defends itself by unleashing swarms of robotic drones, creating spectacular battles with hundreds of ships. The Hive itself acts as a weapon, with its iris opening to release the largest weapon ever seen in No Man’s Sky. Murray described it as a laser capable of destroying entire freighter fleets and even objects as large as a space station. “While in space there are huge battles, on planet there is investigating and pillaging the remains of crashed drones (using the newly-acquired Gravity Gun we introduced earlier this year). Shot down drones need to be salvaged and researched.”
On planets, players will face miniature planetary swarms to defeat, salvage drone wreckage and research the swarm’s network to uncover its origins and weaknesses. Murray said, “The prospect of all existing Travelers converging on a single area of the universe to take on the largest space battles to date, against the backdrop of an ominous, mysterious Death Star-like construct with the ability to destroy space station-sized objects… is going to make for some exciting weeks ahead for us and for players. We can’t wait to see how this plays out.”
The Swarm Expedition and new threats
Expedition Twenty-Two, titled The Swarm, will launch soon and run for about eight weeks. Players joining the expedition will be split into one of three teams, each assigned a ship and uniform in their team’s colors. All teams must collaborate to unlock the final battle, with progress tracked by the construction of the Prismatic Core in the Space Anomaly and displayed in the Mission Log and on the Galactic Atlas website. Progress is driven by completing missions in three categories: Purge, Restoration and Sabotage, each affecting the rate and balance of construction differently. The most valuable team will be honored in the Space Anomaly permanently.
During the expedition, players will face two new enemy types: small, fast swarmer ships and the massive Hive of Glass boss. Crashed swarmer ships can now be found on dissonant planets, with crash sites guarded by small but dangerous planetary swarmers. Buried debris from these ships can also be recovered on worlds that are both dissonant and contain salvageable scrap. For players looking for fresh challenges, the update also introduces a new baby wyvern pet in Crimson Desert.
Patch notes highlight performance and combat improvements
The Swarm update also includes a range of stability and optimization fixes. These include repairs for rare softlocks, crashes related to ship thumbnails and memory optimizations for ship trails and speedlines. Performance improvements were made for players piloting wheeled Exocraft on Switch, Xbox One and PS4, as well as significant optimizations in freighter battles. Other fixes target lighting calculations, object visibility in complex scenes and memory usage when rendering UI on PS4 Pro. A number of rare crashes were also resolved.
Space combat received several enhancements, such as better visibility of targeted enemy ships in third-person mode and improved weapon aiming. Auto-follow navigation in space combat was refined, and the behavior of enemy ships was adjusted for more dynamic encounters. Weak point hits in space battles now always score critical hits, and speedline visuals were improved. Several combat-related bugs were fixed, including issues with Sentinel interceptor spawning and countdown notifications.
Quality of life updates and bug fixes cover a wide range of issues. Teleporter endpoints now remain intact when moving between galaxies through the galactic core, and corvettes can properly land in the Space Station and the Anomaly. Inventory and UI problems were addressed, including backpack visibility while piloting corvettes and camera judder when exiting ships. Additional fixes target corrupted Sentinels on Nintendo Switch, duplicated retroviral pellets and Arena League invitation behavior. Players on Xbox can now view Gamercards of others in the host’s session, and gyro settings are saved correctly when adjusted from the front-end menu.
Full patch notes for Update 6.4
The Swarm Expedition
- Expedition Twenty-Two, The Swarm, will begin shortly and run for approximately eight weeks.
- Players on the expedition will be assigned into one of three teams of Travelers, and allocated a ship and uniform in their team colours.
- All teams must work together to unlock the final battle. Progress is represented by the construction of the Prismatic Core in the Space Anomaly, as well as displayed in the Mission Log and on the Galactic Atlas website.
- Construction of the Prismatic Core is driven by completing three categories of missions to counteract the Swarm: Purge, Restoration and Sabotage. Each category has a different impact on the rate and balance of construction.
- The most valuable team will be honored in the Space Anomaly for all time.
- Rewards include new posters, decals and titles, flags representing your assigned soul fragment, the Direwasp rifle Multi-Tool, the Direwasp Flightpack and the six-piece Direwasp customization set.
Swarmer Enemies
- During the expedition, players will encounter two new enemy types: small, agile swarmer ships and the huge, formidable Hive of Glass boss.
- In all game modes, crashed swarmer ships can now be found on dissonant planets. Crash sites are defended by small but deadly planetary swarmers.
- Buried debris from crashed swarmer ships can now be found on worlds which are both dissonant and contain salvageable scrap.
Stability and Optimization
- Fixed a rare softlock where the Connecting banner could display indefinitely when viewing the initial frontend screens.
- Fixed a crash related to rendering thumbnails for multiple complex corvette-class starships.
- Implemented a number of memory and performance optimizations related to ship trails and speedlines.
- Improved performance when piloting wheeled Exocraft on Switch, Xbox One and PS4.
- Implemented a significant optimization in freighter battles.
- Improved performance of certain lighting calculations on CPU.
- Significantly improved performance when handling object visibility in complex scenes.
- Optimized memory usage when rendering UI in sub-4K resolutions on PS4 Pro.
- Fixed an issue that could cause a crash when playing in 4K on PS4 Pro.
- Fixed a number of rare crashes.
Space Combat
- Improved the visibility of targeted enemy ships in third-person space combat.
- Improved weapon aiming of the starship in third-person space combat.
- Improved the navigation of the starship when using auto-follow in space combat, and allowed auto-follow to boost the ship.
- Improved the navigation and flight patterns of enemy ships in space combat.
- In space combat, when battling enemies with weak points, hitting the weak point will now always crit, and hitting other areas of the enemy will never crit.
- Improved the appearance of speedlines in the starship.
- Fixed an issue that caused mission notifications counting the number of nearby enemy ships to delay updating until a destroyed enemy ship completed its death spin.
- Improved controls for the player ship while in space combat.
- Fixed an issue that could allow Sentinel interceptors to spawn when space combat was disabled in the difficulty settings.
- Fixed an issue that prevented Sentinel interceptors from detecting criminal activity in space if ground combat was disabled in the difficulty settings.
- Fixed an issue that could allow the countdown notification for the pulse engine enabling after combat to display a negative time.
- Improved the notifications for re-enabling the pulse engine after combat to display the correct pulse technology name for the current ship.
Quality of Life and Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue that caused teleporter endpoints from previous galaxies to be removed when progressing to the next galaxy through the galactic core.
- Fixed an issue that prevented teleporter endpoints from being added in galaxies outside the player’s “home” galaxy.
- Fixed an issue that caused In Stellar Multitudes to direct the player to the galaxy map when their first purple star system was actually in a different galaxy.
- Fixed an issue that prevented corvettes from landing in the Space Station and the Anomaly.
- Fixed an issue that caused the player’s backpack to disappear from the inventory screen when piloting a corvette after being in third person.
- When viewing a corvette through the Analysis Visor, the name of the specific module is now displayed on the HUD.
- Fixed an issue which caused the Analysis Visor to close when attempting to tag a marker whilst facing an interactable object.
- Fixed an issue that could cause markers to be displayed for non-existent resource deposits.
- Fixed an issue that prevented transferring inventory items when purchasing a ship.
- Fixed an issue that prevented inventory items from being deletable when transferring into a storage container.
- Fixed an issue that caused the camera to spin if the player quickly exited the ship after answering the ship communicator.
- Fixed a camera judder when first entering a ship after repairing it.
- Fixed an issue that could cause Corrupted Sentinels to flicker rapidly on Nintendo Switch 1 & 2.
- Fixed an issue that allowed retroviral pellets to be duplicated.
- Arena League Challenger’s Invitations are more likely to encourage you to battle on multiple planets before offering a Champion’s Invitation.
- Arena League Challenger’s Invitations are more likely to pick Holo-Arenas you have not previously visited.
- Arena League Champion’s Invitations will now function correctly when used in Outlaw systems.
- Improved the balance of experience awarded to companions when battling in the Holo-Arena against opponents of a much higher level.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the prompt to claim Twitch rewards to persist when all rewards had been claimed.
- Added support for viewing the Gamercards of each Xbox player in the host’s session when on the Join Game screen.
- Hid the Quick Menu keyboard hotkey prompts on PC and handheld devices when playing without mouse and keyboard.
- Fixed an issue that caused armor on display near the Exosuit Research merchant in the Space Station to disappear as you got closer.
- Hid the holographic representation of community mission progress above the Quicksilver Synthesis Bot when no blueprints are currently being generated.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the use of touch controls to claim expedition rewards.
- Fixed an issue that would prevent saving of gyro settings when applying changes from the front-end menu.
