No Man's Sky Marks 10th Anniversary With Cosmos Update, Its Biggest Yet

The update lands a month after the procedurally generated sci-fi survival game turned 10. No Man's Sky launched in 2016 to complaints that it had overpromised and underdelivered on features, and Engadget notes it also was not much fun to play at the time. Hello Games kept shipping updates over the following decade, and the version players boot up today is described as far closer to studio founder Sean Murray's original vision.

Cosmos adds space outposts that players can visit to trade with aliens, along with strippable space hulks and asteroid belts. It also introduces a set of new Expeditions built around different milestone features added to the game over the past 10 years.

Players can now become the director of a fully customizable space station of their own, and free-floating orbital bases can be constructed anywhere in space. Engadget reports that such a base can serve as a restaurant in the stars, or, less excitingly, as a military base or a truck stop.

Because the game's open-world universe is notably large, the update adds an interactive star system map for tracking points of interest and keeping tabs on systems a player has already visited or wants to chart a course toward.

The update also brings galactic alliances, which players can join to meet other players and compete for territory. Members create a name and banner for their alliance, and ranked leaderboards let the most active groups climb.

Hello Games has published full patch notes detailing the Cosmos update. It is available now on all platforms.