- No Man’s Sky new patch brings in the Swarm event.
- New player factions, cosmetics, and more.
- Swarm Expedition and Enemies detailed breakdown.
No Man’s Sky got a big new patch titled the Swarm Update, and it is one of the game’s biggest post-launch content releases yet. While No Man’s Sky has received plenty of massive updates over the years, few of them have been as comprehensive and broadly game-changing as the Swarm Update is, with its Hive of Glass enemy faction and community-level event contributions.
No Man’s Sky’s New Swarm Update
Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky hasn’t missed a beat over the past couple of years, with big content updates releasing at a remarkably steady pace. The April 2026 No Man’s Sky update pales in comparison to the new Swarm Update, however, featuring the first-ever galactic-scale threat to the game’s universe. The Hive of Glass will take both strategy and combat aptitude for players to deal with on a server-wide scale, as the new time-limited campaign is set to deliver a challenge Hello Games hasn’t attempted before. The rewards will be the snazzy Direwasp Armor and Flightpack, as well as the Direwasp Disintegrator rifle.
Addition This Update: Hive Of Glass, Cosmetics, War Effort, Player Factions, And More
Another notable addition is the introduction of player factions to the game. No Man’s Sky has always emphasized community and server-spanning objectives, but never by letting players actively take sides in a given conflict. The Swarm update lets players choose whether they wish to join the Weaver, Royal, or Sage factions to progress the galactic efforts against the Hive of Glass, and though everyone is still working towards the same goal, this may be setting the stage for opposing forces later down the line.
The Swarm Update is built to leverage some of the features and elements introduced in No Man’s Sky‘s Remnant update, like salvage mechanics and the Gravity Gun, so it’s likely that player factions will be used in future updates as well.
Swarm Enemies And Expedition Detailed Breakdown
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.
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 Travellers, 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 glorified 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 customisation set.
Wrapping Up
No Man’s Sky‘s player counts have been up for the last year or so, following the release of the excellent Voyagers Update. At the time, the game’s Steam concurrent player number spiked to over 110,000, and though it has dropped since, the averages are higher than they were before. This speaks to Hello Game’s dedication to building the game up over time, following the clumsy 2016 1.0 release.
A similar approach may be taken for the upcoming release of Light No Fire, which is a fantasy take on the same concept as No Man’s Sky and Hello Games’ next flagship project. The studio has built up a lot of player goodwill over the past decade of work, and though its games aren’t for everyone, it does have a dedicated audience that keeps getting more content for free than most other games ever receive.
You may also like to read: Diablo 4 3rd Anniversary Celebration Hands Out Free Rewards; How to Claim Them
