No Man’s Sky launches The Swarm for large-scale space battles

Hello Games has released The Swarm, a free update for No Man’s Sky that places a community-driven war at the center of gameplay. The update assigns players to one of three factions through an in-game personality test and logs individual contributions to a shared campaign against a new enemy called the Hive of Glass.

Players join squads at the Nexus and can monitor progress using a new in-game bulletin, the Space Anomaly, and the online Galactic Atlas. The update records defensive construction and each traveler’s activity so players can see which faction is leading the campaign.

The Hive of Glass is described by Hello Games as a widespread threat protected by swarms of robotic drones and a central weapon that the studio compared to a Death Star–style construct. In orbit, players can take part in large-scale engagements that may include hundreds of ships and a Hive iris that opens to fire a powerful laser. The studio said the laser can threaten freighter fleets and large stations.

On planetary surfaces, players can investigate crash sites, salvage downed drones and use tools introduced in earlier updates, such as the Gravity Gun, to recover wreckage. Salvaged drones must be analyzed to reveal information about the Hive’s network and behavior. Players can pursue research objectives, attempt to disrupt the swarm’s communications and share findings with members of their faction.

The update includes rewards tied to participation. Players who contribute to the war and complete salvage and research tasks can earn a retro sci-fi style suit of armor, a new rifle, a significantly larger jetpack and other items. The studio also announced a permanent record: the faction that contributes the most will be memorialized in the Space Anomaly.

In its announcement, Hello Games wrote, “Players are going to need a combined community effort to figure out what is going on.” The studio added, “The most effective faction will be memorialized in the Space Anomaly for all time.”

The Swarm follows other recent updates to No Man’s Sky, including the addition of the Gravity Gun and a pet-battling feature in the Xeno Arena. Hello Games positioned the new content as a community event intended to bring players together in shared areas of the game to confront the Hive of Glass. The game, first released in 2016, will reach its tenth anniversary in August and continues to receive free content updates from the developer.