No Man’s Sky: Cosmos is no longer a one-word anniversary tease. The free Update 7.0 is available now for existing players, and it rebuilds the game’s deep-space layer around station directorship, alliances, orbital construction, salvageable hulks and a new system map.

Hello Games released Cosmos on September 9, 2026 across the game’s supported console, PC, Mac and VR platforms. The update also introduces Expedition Twenty-Three: Our Journey Continues, a tour through ten years of major updates with developer commentary and nostalgia-themed rewards.

Is No Man’s Sky Cosmos available now?

Yes. Hello Games identifies Cosmos as No Man’s Sky Update 7.0 and says it is free for everyone who already owns the game. The studio’s September 9 announcement replaces the uncertainty in the August anniversary trailer with a feature page, a current trailer and complete patch notes.

The existing No Man’s Sky game page keeps the full platform list and evergreen overview together. Storefront rollouts can take time to propagate, so players who do not immediately see 7.0 should check the update queue for their own platform rather than reinstalling or starting a new save.

Three No Man’s Sky Travellers stand before a red planet, the Atlas and flying starships in official 10th-anniversary key art.
Hello Games first teased the word Cosmos at the end of its No Man’s Sky 10th-anniversary trailer. Image: Hello Games.

What changed in space with Update 7.0?

Cosmos adds an interactive star system map to the Quick Menu. It marks planets, the station and fixed deep-space points of interest, and it can guide a ship toward unidentified signals. These locations begin appearing after a save has reached the Space Anomaly.

The new destinations include rocky and icy asteroid belts, inhabited and infested outposts, debris fields, asteroid platforms and procedural space hulks. Stars themselves can now be reached by long-haul flight, although the patch notes describe those plasma spheres as lethal rather than a safe landing destination.

A Traveller walks toward a starship and deep-space outpost beneath green stars in No Man’s Sky Cosmos.
Deep-space outposts offer maps, trade, salvage processing and new contracts; some are overrun by biological hazards. Image: Hello Games.

How does space station directorship work?

Players can now become director of a space station after proving themselves to local authorities. The role allows a director to rearrange the central hub, add rooms to the hangar area and place both existing base pieces and new exterior decoration modules.

Hello Games’ announcement casually describes this as owning a station, while the patch notes use the more precise term directorship. Neither source publishes a universal purchase price or one-step unlock requirement, so players should follow the in-game authority path rather than assume every station can be claimed immediately.

Travellers enter a decorated space station lobby filled with blue statues and large red plants in No Man’s Sky Cosmos.
Station directors can reshape the central lobby, add rooms and customize exterior and interior decoration. Image: Hello Games.

What are alliances and orbital bases?

A station director can found a galactic alliance, choose its name and banner, and invite other Travellers. Members can reach alliance systems by teleporter, contribute to their community and compete on station-core leaderboards. The patch notes cap each player at three alliances.

Orbital construction is separate from station management. A deep-space base computer can claim a free-floating volume, while natural asteroid platforms can act as foundations. That supports everything from small outposts to linked structures without tying every build to a planet.

A red starship rests beside an orbital base built across floating ice asteroid platforms in No Man’s Sky Cosmos.
Players can construct orbital bases on natural asteroid platforms or in free-floating volumes of deep space. Image: Hello Games.

How do hulks, outposts and spacewalking connect?

Derelict hulks are explorable wrecks filled with cargo and technology. Travellers can leave their ship, move through the remains in expanded six-degree-of-freedom spacewalking and pull salvage loose with the Gravitino Coil. Damaging too much of a hulk lowers its structural integrity and can start a meltdown.

Corvette-class ships can mount a new Tractor Beam that gathers and refines physical salvage into the hold. Outpost quartermasters sell maps and trade materials, while salvage terminals offer recovery and delivery contracts. Infested versions add biological cleanup hazards and their own resources.

A Traveller spacewalks through orange fire and broken metal as a derelict hulk explodes in No Man’s Sky Cosmos.
Derelict hulks can be stripped for salvage, but damaging their structural integrity can trigger a meltdown. Image: Hello Games.

What is the Our Journey Continues expedition?

Our Journey Continues is Expedition Twenty-Three, built as a playable tour from No Man’s Sky’s 2016 launch through Cosmos. Each milestone corresponds to an update or moment in the game’s development and unlocks commentary read by Sean Murray. Once earned, those notes remain in the Catalogue’s Collected Knowledge section.

Rewards include framed update art, decals and titles, a golden Rasamama S36, an astronaut cockpit figurine, the Starbound v0.27 Multi-Tool, a vintage Sentinel Interceptor and a diplodocus companion recreated from early footage.

The patch notes say the expedition will begin shortly and run for approximately six weeks; they do not provide an exact closing timestamp. A separate Twitch Drops window runs from September 10 through September 14 for connected accounts watching Drops-enabled streams.

Which platforms get No Man’s Sky Cosmos?

Hello Games lists PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, plus Xbox Game Pass, PSVR, PSVR2 and PC VR. Cosmos is described as free to existing players on all of them; it is not a separate paid expansion.

Update 7.0 also carries engine work beyond the headline systems. The patch notes claim console file-handling improvements that reduce load times by 6–9%, lower multiplayer latency, new Xbox bindless-resource support, several memory and base-loading optimizations, improved terrain detail, upgraded particle lighting and a PC fix for V-Sync input latency.

No Man’s Sky Cosmos FAQ

Is No Man’s Sky Cosmos free?

Yes. Cosmos is a free Update 7.0 for existing No Man’s Sky players on every platform listed by Hello Games.

Can you own a space station in No Man’s Sky?

Cosmos lets a player become a station director, customize the lobby, add rooms, change the exterior and use the station as an alliance hub. The official announcement uses “own,” while the detailed patch notes describe the in-game role as directorship.

When does the anniversary expedition end?

Hello Games says Our Journey Continues will run for approximately six weeks and does not publish an exact end timestamp in the 7.0 notes. The Twitch Drops promotion is separately dated September 10–14.

For more verified release coverage, browse the Pixel Twelve Games hub. The live feature page and platform storefront are the final checks for later hotfixes, rollout timing and any expedition schedule update.