No Man's Sky has just received one of its biggest updates yet. Cosmos brings player-owned space stations, galactic alliances, space bases, massive wrecks to salvage, a redesigned star system map, and much more.
Ten years after the launch of No Man's Sky, Hello Games is giving one of the game's oldest environments a major overhaul: space itself.
The free Cosmos Update, also known as Update 7.0, launched on September 9 and introduces a huge collection of new systems designed to make travelling between planets much more interesting. Hello Games says that while No Man's Sky has always been considered a space game, space itself had remained largely unchanged compared with the game's many planetary updates.
Cosmos changes that considerably.
You Can Finally Own a Space Station
One of the biggest additions is something players have requested for years: space station ownership.
Players can prove themselves to local authorities and eventually become the director of a station. Once under your control, the station can be customized both inside and outside.
You can redesign its central lobby, construct additional rooms and decorate the exterior. This effectively allows players to transform a standard station into their own headquarters in space.
Friends can also visit, giving established players another major location to build around alongside planetary bases, freighters and settlements.
Build Bases Directly in Space
Cosmos also dramatically expands base building by allowing players to construct free-floating modular bases almost anywhere in space.
Instead of being restricted to the surface of a planet, players can now create structures overlooking entire worlds.
Hello Games suggests possibilities ranging from orbital restaurants and starship truck stops to military outposts.
It's a major expansion of the building system and could lead to some of the most unusual player creations the game has seen yet.
Galactic Alliances
Space stations also connect to another major new system: Alliances.
Players can establish or join galactic alliances and work together to build networks of stations across the universe.
Alliances can coordinate exploration and expand their territory while competing on new leaderboards. This gives multiplayer communities a larger shared objective beyond simply exploring or building together.
According to Hello Games, alliances can compete to become some of the largest, richest or most prominent groups in the galaxy.
A New Star System Map
Exploration has received a major upgrade as well.
Cosmos introduces a Star System Map accessible from the Quick Menu. Instead of flying around and hoping to encounter something interesting, players can scan their current system and discover celestial bodies and deep-space points of interest.
Those locations can lead to new missions and exploration opportunities.
New discoveries include asteroid belts, deep-space outposts, debris fields, asteroid platforms and enormous space hulks.
Explore and Salvage Giant Space Hulks
Some of the most interesting new locations are enormous wrecks known as space hulks.
Players can dismantle these colossal structures and recover valuable physical salvage. A new tractor-beam-style system allows materials to be collected and transported, turning wreck exploration into another way to gather resources.
There is a catch: these wrecks aren't necessarily stable.
