Today, Hello Games launched No Man’s Sky Update 6.4, titled The Swarm.
The Swarm is the 22nd Expedition launched in No Man’s Sky and will serve as a major combat-focused update. The new content introduces massive space battles, a community-wide faction war, and a terrifying new boss threat called the Hive of Glass. The update centers around Expedition Twenty-Two, a time-limited campaign where the entire player base must cooperate and compete to defend the universe.
This eight-week expedition features a time-limited campaign in which the entire player base must cooperate and compete to defend the universe, while also fragmenting the community into three distinct factions: The Royals, The Sages, and The Weavers. When joining the campaign, you are randomly assigned to a team and given a starship and uniform customized in your team’s colors.
While all three teams are competing to earn a permanent monument inside the Space Anomaly, everyone must simultaneously work together to build the Prismatic Core with Specialist Polo to unlock the final battle. The Swarm boasts a number of elite enemies, especially the Hive of Glass.
The Hive of Glass is a massive, foreboding alien starship resembling a robotic “Death Star” construct lurking just outside planetary atmospheres, featuring a giant iris that opens to fire the largest laser weapon ever seen in the game, capable of wiping out entire freighter fleets. Players must dodge this laser wheel to target its vulnerable core while getting through the dense cloud of robotic swarmer drones that protect it.
There are also ground swarmers that exist on planetary surfaces. These are nimble and fiercely aggressive clusters of land-based swarmers that protect fallen debris from pilots who are trying to steal it for their own gain, as all of the shot-down drones feature debris that lands on worlds that are dissonant and also contain their own unique salvageable scrap.
Using the Gravity Gun introduced in a previous update, players can investigate, pillage, and dismantle fallen swarmer bodies to gather intelligence and expose the corrupted ichor in their circuits. Teams can coordinate and deploy specialized sweeper groups to systematically cleanse contaminated ecosystems of swarmer decay.
By participating in No Man’s Sky Expedition 22, players can unlock premium cosmetic items and weaponry, including:
- Direwasp Customization Set: A rugged, retro sci-fi heavy combat armor set including a helmet, chest piece, plating, gloves, cuisses, and boots forged from swarmer alloys.
- Direwasp Flightpack: A unique insectoid jetpack that audibly hums, vibrates, and oscillates like a swarm of metal insects.
- Direwasp Disintegrator: A specialized high-comfort combat rifle precisely calibrated to minimize fatigue when clearing waves of hostile drones.
- Decorations: Unique team-specific flags and decorative faction posters commemorating the Sages, Royals, and Weavers.
Plenty of other quality-of-life bug fixes and space combat improvements can be seen by heading over to the official post here. For more information on this and other No Man’s Sky updates, be sure to check back to Simulation Daily.
