The No Man’s Sky Cosmos update is out now, and it does the one thing a decade of patches never quite got around to: it makes the space between planets worth stopping in.
For ten years, deep space was a loading corridor. You pulsed through it, dodged an asteroid, and landed. Cosmos officially No Man’s Sky update 7.0 fills that void with derelict hulks, asteroid belts, alien outposts, buildable orbital bases, and space stations you can actually own and run.
This guide covers what’s new, what’s genuinely worth your first hour, and how to unlock the biggest features. If you’re returning after a long break, this is the update to come back for.
What Is the No Man’s Sky Cosmos Update?
Cosmos is version 7.0, released September 9, 2026, timed to the game’s tenth anniversary. Like every major Hello Games patch since 2016, it’s free for everyone who owns the game no season pass, no expansion fee.
It’s available across PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Game Pass, Steam, Mac, Nintendo Switch, and Switch 2.
The headline pitch from Hello Games is a complete overhaul of outer space. In practice, that breaks into four pillars: station ownership, galactic alliances, deep-space points of interest, and orbital construction.
Space Station Directorship: Run Your Own Station
The standout feature of the Cosmos update is space station directorship.
Prove yourself to local system authorities and you earn the right to direct a station. Directorship isn’t cosmetic fluff it’s a full building sandbox layered onto existing hub architecture.
As a director, you can:
- Redecorate the central hub rearrange existing furnishings and add new parts
- Expand the station with additional rooms via a dedicated construction area
- Decorate the exterior using colossal monumental modules
- Unlock hundreds of decorative parts at the Space Anomaly’s Construction Research Terminal
Rare exterior pieces also drop from deep-space anomalies, which gives exploration a direct feedback loop into building. Find the anomaly, get the blueprint, bolt it to your station.
Why this matters: base building in No Man’s Sky was always planet-bound and private. Station directorship makes your build a public landmark other Travellers fly into.
Galactic Alliances and Leaderboards
Station directors can found a galactic alliance, complete with a custom name and banner that propagates across the universe.
Other players join an alliance by visiting any station it owns, and members can fast-travel between allied systems through the teleporter. You can belong to up to three alliances at once.
Alliances are ranked by member activity, with the most populous and expansive collectives displayed on a leaderboard at the space station core. It’s the closest No Man’s Sky has come to persistent player factions a request the community has made for years.
Derelict Hulks and Shipbreaking
The most tense addition in No Man’s Sky Cosmos is shipbreaking.
Colossal shipwrecks drift in deep space: mazes of rusted chambers and narrow chokepoints navigable only on foot, via spacewalk. Inside are valuable technologies and cargo.
The catch is structural integrity. Strip too aggressively and the hulk becomes unstable, triggering a chain reaction and a meltdown. The music shifts when integrity starts failing a nice diegetic warning system.
Practical tip: grab the highest-value loot first and plan your exit route before you start pulling parts. Greed is punished here, and the escape is the hard part.
Deep-Space Outposts, Asteroid Belts, and Infested Structures
Star systems now generate points of interest at fixed, re-visitable locations a meaningful change from the old ephemeral spawns.
- Deep-space outposts run by an alien quartermaster who trades maps and salvage, with a terminal offering salvage and delivery contracts
- Asteroid belts dense fields of rare minerals and strange crystals that attract prospectors, traders, and outlaws
- Ice fields harvestable stellar ice, plus wandering miners and pirates
- Infested outposts structures overtaken by spreading biological goop, hiding pathogen sacs and gelatinous fibres
- The star itself every system’s sun is now reachable via long-haul flight. It is spectacular, and it is lethal
A new star system map in the Quick Menu plots all of it, plus unidentified signals. Mark any target for starship navigational assistance. A light tutorial mission, Signals, introduces the system.
Orbital Construction: Build a Base Anywhere in Space
Deploy a deep-space base computer and claim any empty volume of space as your own.
You can anchor builds to natural asteroid platforms for a dramatic backdrop, or float free and construct a celestial city from scratch. New corridor parts have been added specifically for orbital builds.
Tractor Beams and Physical Salvage
Cosmos introduces genuine physical cargo hauling. Loot at deep-space POIs exists as objects, not inventory abstractions.
The new Tractor Beam, purchasable at the Corvette Workshop in space stations, is a Corvette-class hull attachment that sucks in and refines salvage. Launch objects at the beam with the Gravitino Coil; oversized items get processed down for storage.
Haul it back to an outpost for processing, then sell on the Galactic Trade Network or repurpose it as station decoration. There’s also an automated venting system to dump an entire hold in seconds not recommended for sentient objects.
Crucially, spacewalking is no longer Corvette-exclusive. Any pilot can now eject from the Quick Menu at any point in space, with true six degrees of freedom including roll.
Our Journey Continues: The 10-Year Anniversary Expedition
Expedition Twenty-Three, Our Journey Continues, runs for roughly six weeks and walks players through the game’s own history each milestone representing a real moment in the No Man’s Sky timeline, from the rocky 2016 launch through to Cosmos.
Every milestone carries developer commentary read aloud by Sean Murray, permanently archived in the Collected Knowledge catalogue once unlocked.
Rewards lean hard into nostalgia:
- Diplodocus companion resurrected and reanimated from pre-release footage
- Vintage Sentinel Interceptor rebuilt from early trailers
- Golden Rasamama S36 starship
- Starbound v0.27 Multi-Tool, designed from original concept art
- Framed commemorative art and an astronaut cockpit bobblehead
Given the game’s famously turbulent 2016 launch, an expedition that openly retraces that arc is a confident bit of self-reflection.
Visual and Performance Upgrades in Update 7.0
Cosmos is also a serious technical patch:
- Rewritten texture block compression, cutting artifacting and colour banding
- Improved terrain tessellation and higher-detail ground textures
- Enhanced clouds viewed from space, plus volumetric fog around hulks
- Support for Intel XeSS 3 and NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 with 5x and 6x Frame Generation
- Foveated rendering on PCVR via eye tracking
- Console load times improved 6–9%, mesh file sizes reduced ~13%
VR players get particular attention here worth noting since No Man’s Sky remains one of the deepest VR titles available.
Twitch Drops for Cosmos
A Twitch Drops campaign runs September 10–14, 2026, offering base parts, starships, Multi-Tools, creatures, and fireworks.
You don’t need to own the game to claim them rewards wait in your inventory. Link your platform accounts on the official Twitch Drops page and watch any Drops-Enabled stream.
FAQ
Is the No Man’s Sky Cosmos update free?
Yes. Cosmos (update 7.0) is a free update for all existing owners on every platform, continuing Hello Games’ decade-long pattern of free major content drops.
How do you become a space station director in No Man’s Sky?
You must first prove yourself to the local system authorities. Once granted directorship, you gain rights over the station’s exterior decoration, interior layout, and expansion rooms. Decoration modules unlock at the Space Anomaly’s Construction Research Terminal, with rare pieces also awarded by deep-space anomalies.
Do I need a Corvette to explore deep-space points of interest?
No. Any pilot can now exit their ship in space using the Quick Menu. However, a Corvette-class ship with a Tractor Beam is strongly recommended for hauling physical salvage, since only Corvettes can equip the beam and store bulk cargo.
How long does the Our Journey Continues expedition last?
Approximately six weeks from launch. Expedition rewards are time-limited, so claim the vintage Interceptor, diplodocus, and Starbound Multi-Tool before the window closes.
Does the Cosmos update work on Nintendo Switch?
Yes. Update 7.0 supports both Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, and includes optimisations that specifically reduce object pop-in on Switch hardware.
Do I need to start a new save for the Cosmos update?
No. Existing saves carry over. Deep-space points of interest begin appearing on your star system map once your save has reached the Space Anomaly.
The Verdict: Should You Jump Back In?
The No Man’s Sky Cosmos update solves the game’s oldest structural problem. Space is no longer an empty transition between the interesting parts it is an interesting part.
Station directorship gives long-term players a public canvas. Alliances give solo explorers a reason to coordinate. Shipbreaking adds real, physical risk to looting. And a six-week anniversary expedition is the ideal on-ramp for lapsed Travellers.
If you bounced off No Man’s Sky years ago, this is a different game now.
