No Man's Sky: COSMOS Lets You Own Space Stations and Build Alliances — Version 7.0 Explained

Hello Games released No Man’s Sky: COSMOS — version 7.0 — on September 9, 2026, as a free update to celebrate the game’s 10th anniversary. It’s the biggest overhaul of the game’s space layer since launch, built around three connected systems: owning and customizing a space station, forming Alliances with other players, and building freestanding bases directly in space rather than only on planets.

The Quick Version

Own and run a space station

The centerpiece of COSMOS is station directorship. After proving themselves to local authorities, players can become the director of a space station, styling its central lobby, adding ancillary rooms, and customizing its exterior decorations. It’s a genuine ownership layer on top of the existing station hubs players have been docking at for years — not a cosmetic reskin.

Galactic Alliances

Station directors can found their own Galactic Alliance, designing a name, tag and banner. Other players join an alliance by visiting one of its owned stations, and members get fast travel to allied systems via the teleporter. Hello Games caps membership at three alliances per player, and the biggest, most active alliances appear on leaderboards at the station core — Hello Games frames this as a way for players to “make friends, co-ordinate exploration, and compete for the most expansive territory,” not as a formal guild or PvP system.

Orbital bases and a reworked star map

Players can now construct orbital bases anywhere in space, either building off natural asteroid platforms or claiming an empty patch of space outright — a freestanding equivalent to planetary base-building. Deep space itself got denser too, with new points of interest like asteroid belts (rocky and icy variants), inhabited and infested outposts, and procedurally generated hulks and debris fields.

The star system map has also been reworked to show these new points of interest, and for the first time players can fly directly toward a system’s star. Hello Games is blunt about what happens when you get there: stars are “bright, spectacular, but ultimately lethal” — this is a flight destination and a visual spectacle, not a landable location.

Hello Games also says planetary cloud rendering, as seen from orbit and from space, has been “greatly enhanced, with upgraded textures, shape detail, and lighting.”

Our Journey Continues: the 10th-anniversary expedition

Alongside COSMOS, Hello Games launched Our Journey Continues, a limited-time community expedition built around the roughly 40 major updates No Man’s Sky has received since its 2016 launch. Each milestone in the expedition unlocks a piece of that update history, paired with developer commentary from Sean Murray. Completing it rewards commemorative items, including a golden edition of the original Rasamama-36 starship, an astronaut bobblehead, the Starbound v0.27 multi-tool, a vintage Interceptor ship, and a diplodocus pet from the game’s earliest trailers.

Twitch Drops

Hello Games is running a Twitch Drops campaign from September 10 to September 14, 2026. Viewers can earn rewards by watching participating streamers with drops enabled — Hello Games notes viewers can earn drops “even if you don’t own No Man’s Sky yet.”

What COSMOS doesn’t add

To be clear about scope: COSMOS doesn’t introduce a passive-income economy, formal MMO guild structures, real orbital physics simulation, or the ability to land on a star. It’s an expansion of existing systems — station ownership, base-building and social structure — layered onto space itself, not a new game mode bolted on top.

No Man’s Sky remains Hello Games’ flagship live-service title even as the studio works on its next game, Light No Fire — Red Reactions will have dedicated coverage as more details on that project emerge.

Coming back after a break rather than picking this up fresh? Our returning player guide covers save compatibility and what’s changed since you left.