New No Man's Sky The Swarm update threatens the universe with a murderous, robotic hive - not the bees!

It's hard to think that No Man's Sky is nearly ten years old. I remember being there in the glorious summer of 2016. Pokémon GO was all the rage, but I was even more excited for Hello Games' space game to drop. As we know, it was an underwhelming launch, and so would begin one of the best comeback stories in modern gaming. No longer the bland, isolated experience of yesteryear, No Man's Sky is now one of the genre's heaviest hitters. What better way is there to celebrate that than by pulling us all together and having us face off against a giant drone armada?

Well, that's what today's No Man's Sky update, The Swarm, is promising. Hello Games head Sean Murray says "something new, huge, and foreboding is hanging in the sky above planets. Unlike anything we've seen before." If Destiny has taught me anything, it's that a giant space hive is never a good thing, and hulking alien masses warping into the local system should probably be shot down with great prejudice. No hard feelings.

According to Murray, we'll be divided up into three factions, based on a personality test that we'll have to fill out upon booting up the new update. From there, we'll need to work together to defeat the Hive of Glass, with contributions being logged in both the Anomaly and the Galactic Atlas. If you're part of the best team (the Team Mystic of the NMS world), then you'll be "memorialized" in the anomaly forever. Honestly, the update could not be more Destiny-coded if it tried, so if you're still mourning D2's demise, No Man's Sky has you covered.

The Swarm update is set to bring NMS' "biggest and most epic space battles to date." The Hive spews out drone swarms to protect itself, making for some massive-scale space battles. As an OG Star Wars Battlefront enjoyer, I'm so in. The update has clearly taken some inspiration from the iconic space opera, too. Murray reveals that the Hive itself is also a weapon - "the largest weapon we've ever seen in No Man's Sky," in fact. It is, get this, "a laser capable of destroying freighter fleets and perhaps even something as large as a space station." Say it with me: that's no moon.

Taking part in massive space battles isn't the only way to contribute to the effort. Pillaging crashed drones with the Gravity Gun, and researching their remains can provide critical intel to your faction. Likewise is the case for the mini planetary swarms we can clear out while tracking down rare monsters to pit against each other in the recently-added Xeno Arena - two birds with one stone.

The smug feeling of defeating a universe-level threat isn't the only way we'll be rewarded. Murray says we're in for a slew of goodies, including "a full suit of armour that has a retro sci-fi feel, a new rifle, [a] huge new jetpack, and much more." I'm personally in it for the love of the game, but I'll gladly yoink my share of the loot.