Ten years later, No Man’s Sky is better than ever

It is hard to believe that No Man’s Sky is already ten years old. Hello Games’ enormous space adventure originally launched on August 9, 2016, and its first days were certainly not easy. The game arrived with massive expectations, and many players felt the experience did not quite match what they had imagined before release. What happened afterward, though, turned No Man’s Sky into one of gaming’s greatest comeback stories.

Instead of moving on, Hello Games kept building. Ten years later, No Man’s Sky has received 40 major updates, all released for free, adding everything from base building and settlements to Exocraft, mechs, pets, expeditions, living ships and huge improvements to the universe itself. Today, it feels almost impossible to compare the game with its 2016 version. Exploring strange planets, flying through colourful star systems and stumbling across something completely unexpected can still produce some genuinely beautiful moments. At this point, No Man’s Sky feels less like the unfinished dream people debated at launch and more like an incredible piece of interactive sci-fi art.

Ten years later, No Man’s Sky is still growing

The latest major expansion-sized update is The Swarm, released in May 2026 as Update 6.4. It introduces a new threat centred around the enormous Hive of Glass, alongside battles involving swarms of agile enemy ships and large-scale encounters where players can work together to develop the technology needed to fight back. It followed another wonderfully strange update that introduced creature battling, showing that Hello Games is clearly still willing to experiment.

Naturally, the tenth anniversary has also sparked plenty of speculation about another major update. Hello Games has not revealed full details yet, but Sean Murray has confirmed that the studio is working on “big things” for the future of No Man’s Sky. Considering the studio’s history of surprising players with massive free updates, it is easy to understand why fans are watching closely.

And somehow, Hello Games is doing all of this while developing its next game, Light No Fire. The upcoming adventure mixes exploration, survival and building on a fantasy planet designed at an enormous scale. Hello Games confirmed during the anniversary celebrations that work on the project continues, although there is still no official release date. Hopefully we will not have to wait too much longer to see it properly.

If the tenth anniversary has made you want to jump back into the stars—or explore them for the first time—make sure to use our price comparison tool to find the best prices for No Man’s Sky and start your own journey across its almost endless universe.