- No Man’s Sky is launching on iPhone and iPad on October 28, 2026 — a full port, not a lite or stripped-down version.
- The iOS version includes all 40+ major updates the game has received since 2016, including the recent Cosmos update (version 7.0).
- Hello Games has been working on the mobile port for nearly three years, with Sean Murray saying he “didn’t believe it until he played it himself.”
- The game requires only 4GB of storage on iOS and supports touch, controllers, and even mouse and keyboard input.
- Planetary Settlements will only be available on iPhone 15 Pro or newer, and multiplayer will not be available at launch.
- Murray confirmed that technical work on Light No Fire directly contributed to the optimisations that made the iOS port possible.
- Pre-orders for No Man’s Sky on iOS are open now ahead of the October 28 launch.
If you’d told someone in 2016 — when No Man’s Sky launched to controversy and a partially-empty galaxy — that the game would eventually run on a smartphone, they’d probably have laughed. And yet here we are. Hello Games has announced that No Man’s Sky is coming to iPhone and iPad on October 28, 2026, in a full port that includes every major update the game has ever received. Even more interesting is how it got there: work on the studio’s next game, Light No Fire, helped unlock the technical capabilities that made the mobile version possible at all.
No Man’s Sky on iOS — What You’re Getting
This isn’t a mobile spinoff or a stripped-back version built for touchscreens. Hello Games has ported the full No Man’s Sky experience to iOS — including all 40+ major updates the game has received across a decade of development, up to and including the Cosmos update (version 7.0) that arrived in September 2026. Sean Murray described it simply: “There’s something incredible about this universe fitting in your pocket.”
The port is impressively compact given the scope of the game — it requires only 4GB of storage on iOS devices, which is genuinely remarkable for a procedurally generated universe that spans effectively infinite planets. Hello Games has made the game compatible with a wide range of iOS devices, and input options are broad: the game supports touch controls, controllers, and even mouse and keyboard. Pre-orders are already live on the App Store ahead of the October 28 release date.
What’s Missing at Launch
Two notable limitations come with the iOS version at launch. First, the Planetary Settlements feature — which lets players become the Overseer of a growing planetary colony — will only be available on iPhone 15 Pro or newer. The hardware demands of running settlements are apparently too much for older iOS devices, at least in this initial release.
The bigger limitation is that multiplayer will not be available at launch. For a game that has built a significant part of its identity around the ability to encounter other players across a shared universe, that’s a meaningful omission. It’s worth noting that this is described as a launch limitation rather than a permanent one, suggesting Hello Games intends to add it in a future update — but there’s no timeline on when that might arrive.
Why It Took Three Years — and How Light No Fire Helped
Murray revealed in a deep-dive video that Hello Games has been working on this mobile port for nearly three years as a “little side project.” The challenge was fundamental: No Man’s Sky is a game that generates its entire universe in real-time on your device, procedurally creating planets, creatures, flora, and star systems on the fly. Squeezing that pipeline into a mobile memory profile while hitting console-quality visuals was, by Murray’s own admission, something they once believed “would never be possible.”
The breakthrough came from an unexpected direction. In an interview with Polygon, Murray explained: “We have had to think really hard about where are we going to get this performance from, and how are we going to fit in our memory profile better — and some of those changes have come from Light No Fire.”
Light No Fire — Hello Games’ upcoming fantasy survival game set on a single Earth-sized planet populated by thousands of players simultaneously — demands even more aggressive optimisation than No Man’s Sky. The sheer scale of one persistent landmass that must support massive numbers of concurrent players required Hello Games to rethink how they handle procedural generation at a fundamental level. Those improvements, built for Light No Fire, fed back into No Man’s Sky and made the iOS port technically viable where it hadn’t been before.
It’s a fascinating bit of cross-pollination between two projects — the decade-old space sim benefiting from R&D done on its successor, which in turn is shaping up to be an even more ambitious technical achievement.
What Is the Cosmos Update?
The iOS version launches with the full Cosmos update included, which is significant because Cosmos (version 7.0) is one of No Man’s Sky’s most transformative updates to date. Released on September 9, 2026, timed to the game’s tenth anniversary, Cosmos completely revamped the space between planets — which had remained largely unchanged since the original 2016 launch.
The update introduced space station ownership, letting players take over and customise stations within star systems. Owning a station unlocks the Alliance system, allowing groups of players to establish networks of stations, compete on leaderboards, and build shared objectives. New orbital bases can be constructed freely in space or anchored to asteroids, and space hulks drifting through the void can be stripped for salvage. There’s also a new objective: a perilous journey toward the centre of a star system’s sun, previously off-limits to players entirely.
Alongside Cosmos, Hello Games also ran a tenth-anniversary expedition called “Our Journey Continues,” taking players through milestones corresponding to each of No Man’s Sky’s 40 updates, with developer commentary and historical trivia at every stop. The iOS version arriving with all of this built in means new mobile players are getting the most complete version of the game that has ever existed.
Where Does This Leave Light No Fire?
Murray has hinted that Light No Fire is further along in development than many expected — but in a line that perfectly captures his hard-won communication caution after No Man’s Sky’s launch, he told Eurogamer that he’s learned a “very important lesson of not talking about things too soon.” No release date has been announced for Light No Fire, and Hello Games remains characteristically tight-lipped.
What the No Man’s Sky iOS port confirms is that Hello Games has been doing significant technical work quietly in the background, and that the two projects are sharing technology in meaningful ways. The engine improvements needed for Light No Fire’s Earth-sized persistent world are now also powering a phone port of a ten-year-old space exploration game. For a studio that operates with a famously small headcount, that kind of cross-project efficiency matters enormously.
If you’re keeping up with what’s going on across gaming right now, our coverage of Epic Games’ delayed Marvel and Star Wars shooter and their controversial AI-first development mandate is another major story about how studios are approaching game development in 2026. And for fighting game fans, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls’ full Year 1 DLC roster — including Phoenix Cyclops launching November 2 — is worth checking out. On the exclusive games front, our breakdown of Clockwork Revolution as Xbox’s next permanent console exclusive for 2027 covers what’s coming on that side of the platform wars.
