Hello Games launches The Swarm update with eight-week event

Developer Hello Games has launched a major new update for its space exploration title No Man's Sky, introducing a time-limited, community-driven event centered on a new existential threat. The update, titled "The Swarm," adds a formidable enemy faction and an eight-week cooperative expedition for players to confront it.

The central new adversary is the Hive of Glass, a massive alien mothership described as an existential threat. To counter it, the update initiates Expedition Twenty-Two, a limited-time campaign running for approximately eight weeks. Upon starting the game, players are assigned to one of three factions—Royal, Sage, or Weaver—through a personality test. These teams must collaborate on a shared objective: constructing a Prismatic Core within the game's social hub, the Space Anomaly, to unlock a final assault on the Hive.

Community progress is tracked on a new bulletin page in the Anomaly and on the game's Galactic Atlas website. Players contribute by completing three categories of missions: Purge, Restoration, and Sabotage. The faction that contributes the most to the war effort will be permanently commemorated within the Space Anomaly with unique decorations and awards.