No Man’s Sky continues its epic journey through the cosmos with the launch of its latest major update, dubbed “The Swarm.” This new content introduces an unprecedented threat to the universe in the form of a colossal, enigmatic structure, reminiscent of a Death Star, appearing ominously above various planets. Hello Games has teased that this towering construct is “unlike anything we’ve seen before,” signaling a paradigm shift in the game’s evolving narrative and gameplay challenges. Players are called upon for a monumental, combined community effort to unravel the mysteries surrounding this new adversary. The update throws Travellers into an immediate personality test, assigning them to one of three factions, each tasked with cooperating, strategizing, and competing against the existential threat known as the Hive of Glass. This initiative kicks off a universe-wide war effort, with defenses being rapidly erected and community progress meticulously tracked, promising the biggest and most epic space battles No Man’s Sky has ever witnessed.
No Man’s Sky The Swarm Update Update 6.4 patch notes:
The Swarm Expedition
The Swarm Expedition, the twenty-second journey of its kind, is now underway and set to captivate players for approximately eight weeks. Participants in this unique event are assigned to one of three distinct teams of Travellers, each receiving a specialized ship and uniform in their designated team colors. The overarching goal demands collaborative effort from all teams to unlock the ultimate confrontation. Collective progress is visibly represented by the ongoing construction of the Prismatic Core within the Space Anomaly, with detailed tracking available in the Mission Log and on the Galactic Atlas website. The advancement of the Prismatic Core is primarily driven by completing missions categorized under Purge, Restoration, and Sabotage, each influencing the construction pace differently. Rewards for this endeavor include exclusive posters, decals, titles, flags signifying your soul fragment, the formidable Direwasp rifle Multi-Tool, the Direwasp Flightpack, and a comprehensive six-piece Direwasp customisation set, celebrating the most impactful faction’s contribution.
Swarmer Enemies
With The Swarm update, players will confront two entirely new and formidable enemy types that promise to test their combat prowess. The first are the small, incredibly agile swarmer ships, capable of fast maneuvers in space. The second, and arguably more terrifying, is the immense Hive of Glass boss, a true spectacle of engineering and destruction. Across all game modes, the remnants of crashed swarmer ships can now be discovered on dissonant planets, their wreckage often guarded by smaller, lethal planetary swarmers. These ground-based defenders add a new layer of danger to planetary exploration. Furthermore, buried debris from these fallen swarmer vessels can be unearthed on worlds that exhibit both dissonant properties and contain salvageable scrap, offering valuable resources and lore. These new adversaries introduce diverse combat scenarios, challenging players both in the vastness of space and on alien planetary surfaces.
Stability and Optimisation
The 6.4 Swarm Update brings a crucial suite of stability enhancements and performance optimisations, ensuring a smoother and more reliable gameplay experience for all Travellers. A significant fix addresses a rare softlock where the “Connecting” banner could indefinitely remain on initial frontend screens. The developers also resolved a crash specifically linked to rendering thumbnails for multiple complex corvette-class starships. Memory and performance improvements have been implemented, particularly concerning ship trails and speedlines, enhancing visual fluidity. Performance when operating wheeled Exocraft on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PS4 has seen a noticeable boost, along with a substantial optimisation for freighter battles. CPU performance for certain lighting calculations has been refined, and object visibility in intricate scenes has been significantly improved. Memory usage when rendering UI in sub-4K resolutions on PS4 Pro is now optimised, addressing a potential crash in 4K on the same console, alongside resolving various other rare crash incidents.
Space Combat
Space combat has received a comprehensive overhaul in The Swarm update, making intergalactic engagements more immersive and responsive. Visibility of targeted enemy ships during third-person space combat has been significantly improved, allowing for clearer targeting. Weapon aiming for starships in third-person view is now more precise and intuitive. The navigation of starships when utilizing auto-follow in space combat has been enhanced, now allowing the auto-follow system to boost the ship, maintaining pursuit. Enemy ship navigation and flight patterns have also been refined, leading to more challenging and dynamic encounters. In battles against enemies featuring weak points, striking these specific areas will consistently result in critical damage, while hitting other sections will not. The appearance of speedlines within the starship cockpit has been improved for better visual feedback. Issues causing mission notifications for nearby enemy ships to delay updating have been fixed, and player ship controls during space combat have been refined, ensuring a more fluid experience.
QOL and Bug Fixes
A broad array of quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes accompanies The Swarm update, enhancing the overall user experience. Issues preventing teleporter endpoints from previous galaxies from being removed when progressing to new ones, and hindering the addition of endpoints outside the player’s home galaxy, have been resolved. The “In Stellar Multitudes” mission will now correctly direct players to their first purple star system, even if in a different galaxy. Corvettes can now properly land in Space Stations and the Anomaly. A bug causing the player’s backpack to disappear from the inventory screen after piloting a corvette in third person has been fixed. The Analysis Visor now displays specific module names for corvettes and no longer closes when tagging a marker while facing an interactable object. Inventory management has seen improvements, addressing issues with item transfers during ship purchases and deletion into storage containers. Camera glitches upon exiting ships or after communicator use have been smoothed out. Various minor visual and gameplay inconsistencies, including Sentinel flickering on Switch, duplicated retroviral pellets, and Holo-Arena invitation logic, have also been addressed, alongside general UI and control refinements for a more polished experience.
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