Hello Games has announced and released No Man’s Sky update 5.7 “Beacon,” a massive overhaul of core systems like settlements and more.

A native Nintendo Switch 2 version was also announced with the update, releasing day-and-date with the console on June 5th.

No Man’s Sky has been available for Windows PC (via Steam), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.

Here’s a rundown on the new update, plus some trailers:

Beacon: Introducing Update 5.7

Expand your planetary empire in No Man’s Sky BEACON. Become Overseer of multiple planetary settlements, and discover the townships of the secretive robotic Autophage. Introducing improved settlement balance, more variety of management decisions, building upgrades, infestations, new base parts and more!

Explore an infinite universe at home or on the go with the cutting-edge No Man’s Sky: Nintendo Switch™ 2 Edition – available on launch day. Featuring full multiplayer, beautiful high resolution graphics, touch controls, increased planetary detail, higher framerates, high-res UI, gyro aiming, cross-play and cross-save support to continue your existing journey.

Features

• Oversee multiple settlements – Become Overseer of up to four settlements, managing townships on the frontier of multiple worlds – each with their own set of citizens and challenges. Govern your settlers wisely and invest in their infrastructure to enable each settlement to flourish, producing lucrative resources, and becoming an invaluable base of operations throughout your journey.
• Historical records – As Overseer, review a history of your settlement’s accomplishments and statistics achieved throughout your tenure. Improved record-keeping now documents your influence on your citizens’ happiness, the number of sentinel attacks successfully repelled, new infrastructure constructed, and more.
• Pyrotechnic spectacles – Significant events in a settlement – including festivals, new citizens, successful expeditions, building constructions, and more – will now prompt the settlers to celebrate with fireworks in the town centre.
• Autophage settlements – Discover rare Autophage settlements, populated by secretive robotic lifeforms and assembled from scrap and crystal. Travellers who have encountered the Autophage can join these settlements as Overseer, and those who have earned their trust may receive a special invitation…
• Inspect building details – Inspect settlement structures from their building details terminal. Each building provides an ongoing contribution to the settlement’s productivity and happiness levels, and some can provide special features to boost the entire settlement.
• Weathered construction materials – Adopt a rustic aesthetic for your bases with new sets of weathered and rusted surfaces. Applicable to all existing timber, stone, and alloy structural components – as well as the new salvaged components.
• Deep settlement management – The underlying systems controlling settlements have been completely reworked for greater choice and depth. Every building now has its own calculated contribution to the happiness, population and productivity of the settlement, making construction choices more important than ever. Choose carefully which buildings to upgrade as you specialise your construction efforts to improve your citizens’ lives – or their revenues…
• Settler personalities – Conversing with your settlers can now reveal an information page about each of them – providing insight into their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, and quirks – as well the skills of any specialists such as bakers or musicians.
• Citizen dilemma improvements – Citizen disputes have been completely reworked and expanded, removing ambiguity from the scenarios described and presenting the Overseer with a much wider pool of resolutions. Determine your own moral stance on the quarrels of your citizens – or fine them all if everybody is at fault!
• Customise your settlement – Settlement buildings can now be upgraded to higher classes, increasing their utility, enhancing their appearance, granting them a more prestigious name, and raising the overall status of your township.
• Autophage settlers – Some of the highly enigmatic Autophage have built settlements of scrap metal and Atlantideum – where they live safely cloaked, only visible when scanned with specialist technology. The thoughts of these secretive robotic lifeforms are their own, with only fragments of meaning understandable to their Overseer.
• Squadron defends your settlement – Travellers who have recruited pilots to their squadron now benefit from additional defences against pirate raids, as brave pilots scramble their ships to defend the settlement.
• Exosuit voice options – The Exosuit AI narrating your journey can now speak with a masculine voice – or be silenced entirely.
• Settlement fishing – Relax at the water’s edge of settlement fishing ponds, reeling in bigger and juicier catches with each upgrade of the pool.
• Richer citizen guidance – A variety of new management decisions are available to the Overseer, reflecting the consequences of previous choices. Blessings and specialist workers will return to benefit the settlement, and other new scenarios will arise – such as commissioning artwork or helping name a newborn citizen.
• Custom resource production – Settlements that are clear of debt now have a far greater range of options for resource production. Each resource is now tied to particular buildings’ upgrade levels, allowing Overseers who develop farming, industrial or trade specialisms a greater range of materials. Manufactured resources are now directed by the Overseer instead of automatically assigned. Return to a thriving settlement to harvest its resources to assist your journey – or export them for sale on the galactic exchange.
• An essential base of operations – Structures at your settlement now offer deeper interactivity and gameplay. Converse with Guild envoys at marketplaces, probe deep space from towers, determine the soundtrack at the saloon, deconstruct starships at landing pads, purchase new Multi-Tools from factories – and much more.
• Intel xess – Intel Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) uses machine learning for real-time upscaling – enabling both higher performance and exceptional image quality for PC players.
• Player voice options – Player vocalisations – such as breathing or exertions when running – can now be customised to several different voice types, varying in pitch and character.
• The vile brood seeks hosts – The dangers that threaten a planetary settlement are now much more varied. Sentinel forces seeking to eliminate settlements now include waves of repair drones, summoners, heavy, corrupted, and standard drones – leading to more interesting and tactical combat encounters. The vile insect queen and her brood have also developed a new “curiosity” about these deliciously-populated points of interest…
• Autophage base parts – Visit the Space Anomaly to obtain a multitude of new structural and decorative Autophage base parts, and construct your own base in their hard sci-fi aesthetic.
• Settlement event balance – Sentinel incursion events have been rebalanced, so that settlements call their Overseer to return and defend them less frequently. The range of citizen and management decisions settlers can ask your guidance on has been expanded, and the rewards for doing so have been adjusted to be more enticing to a busy Overseer. The range of stat-boosting special features a settlement can acquire has been tripled to eighteen.
• Survey your empire – Use the Quick Menu to access the Settlements Register from anywhere, allowing an Overseer to quickly assess the status of all their managed settlements. View debt progress, production status, and history – and even retire as Overseer.
• Settlements influence system economy – A flourishing settlement benefits an entire solar system, with the local economy receiving a boost from its wealth.
• Improved snapping – The mechanism for snapping structural base parts together has been revisited, greatly improving the building experience when placing floors and roofs.
• Cross-save full release – The Cross-Save feature is now available to all players, allowing you to seamlessly continue your journey across any platforms running No Man’s Sky. To transfer your save data across platforms, read more about Cross-Save and connect your platform accounts here.