If a No Man's Sky update is out on PlayStation, Xbox and PC but not on your Switch or Switch 2, nothing is wrong with your console. Switch always gets the updates later. From the dates I could find, the wait runs from a few days to about three weeks, and on my Switch 2 it has been around two weeks, every time. The reasons are a mix of Nintendo's review step, a PC-first release habit, memory limits on Switch and a really small studio.
Is Forsaken out on Switch yet?
Forsaken (7.10) came out on October 28, 2026 for PlayStation, Xbox and PC. The patch notes coverage says it will reach Switch 2 and Switch "soon", which is the word every announcement uses. As of October 31, three days later, I haven't found a Switch or Switch 2 release.
Three days is normal, so no panic yet. If the usual one to two weeks holds, my guess is somewhere between November 4 and November 11. That's only a guess from past waits, because neither Hello Games nor Nintendo has given a date.
How long Switch players wait for No Man's Sky updates
Here are the updates that took a week or more to reach the Switch 2. The shorter waits aren't in the table: Waypoint reached Switch a few days after the other platforms in 2022, hotfix 5.58 was still missing on Switch the day after it reached Steam, and Beacon came out on Switch the same day as everywhere else, together with the Switch 2 Edition.
| Update | Other platforms | Switch 2 | Wait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voyagers (6.0) | August 27, 2025 | Live by September 17, 2025 | 13 to 21 days |
| Xeno Arena (6.3) | April 8, 2026 | Mid to late April 2026 | About 2 weeks |
| The Swarm (6.4) | May 27, 2026 | Mid to late June 2026 | About 2 weeks |
| Cosmos (7.0) | September 9, 2026 | Weeks later, in the October patches | About 2 weeks for the update, and longer to get it working |
These dates come from my own Switch 2 and from what I read online. I only started playing after the Remnant update, so Voyagers is from other players and the press. I didn't write down the exact days for the other three, and I'd rather say that than invent them.
Voyagers is the long one. Players on the Nintendo Life forum said it took more than two weeks with no update on Switch 2, and about three weeks in total for 6.0.0. Cosmos was the worst one for me. My Switch build sat there unplayable and cut off from the cross-play community for weeks, because it was two versions behind the other platforms. It only sorted itself out when the stability fixes piled up and came in the October patches.
Beacon proves it can be done. Hello Games shipped on Switch the same day as everyone else, so this is not something that has to happen.
Why No Man's Sky updates are late on Switch
1. Nintendo reviews every build
Every Switch build goes through Nintendo's review before it can come out. When Waypoint was late in 2022, it was reported as "currently through certification with Nintendo" while PC players already had it. Developer guides say console review is far stricter than app stores, and that a build sent back means fixing it and joining the queue again, which can take one to two weeks. The same guides say patches get a lighter and usually faster review than a full game, so the review alone doesn't explain a 13 to 21 day gap. How much of the wait is Nintendo, only Nintendo and Hello Games know.
2. A really small studio that ships PC first
Hello Games is around thirty people by most counts, and about fifty by the highest estimate I found. A team that size patches PC first and fast, because that's where most players are and where a bad update can be fixed the same day.
Stardew Valley shows how deliberate this can be. Its 1.6 update reached PC in March 2024 and consoles on November 4, 2024. Its creator, Eric Barone, said he releases on PC first as a kind of beta test, because critical bugs, like ones that destroy saves, hit harder on consoles, where they can't be patched out as quickly. He also said he never meant the delay to be that long.
Big cross-play games like Fortnite, Apex Legends and Overwatch are often described as doing the opposite. They hold the PC and PlayStation release until the Switch version passes review, so every platform goes live together. A thirty-person studio can't hold everything back for a week or two, so PC and PlayStation players get the new version first and Switch comes after. Nobody from Hello Games has said that's the plan, so I take it as a likely explanation and not a confirmed one.
3. Switch runs out of memory
This is the best documented reason. In April 2026, Hello Games engine programmer Martin Griffiths wrote on X that Switch 1, Switch 2 and Steam Deck take a "disproportionate amount of engineering time" with every update. He said a bunch of people at the studio probably spend 2 to 3 times more time getting each update to run there as it does on the other consoles and PC. He called it beating "impossible memory constraints with a growing game".
It makes sense with how the game works. The universe is generated by code, and every new feature puts more in a limited amount of memory. An update that fits fine on PC can need code rewritten and optimized before it fits on Switch. That's extra work on top of the normal release, so Switch trails.
4. Hotfixes that restart the clock
After a big update the patches come fast. Cosmos (7.0) came out on September 9, 2026, and the other platforms got hotfixes on September 11, 15, 16, 22 and 30. That's five patches in three weeks.
As players and developers describe it, version 1.0 goes to Nintendo for review, PC gets 1.01 and 1.02 while Nintendo checks it, and if the first build is sent back, the resubmission goes into the queue again. Developer guides put console resubmission queues at one to two weeks. By then PC is several patches ahead and the Switch build has to catch up with all of them. Nobody has confirmed this happens with No Man's Sky, so it stays an explanation and not a fact.
One player on the Nintendo Life forum put the result simply. They could download their cross-save but couldn't load it, because their Switch 2 had just reached 6.0.0 while the other platforms were several updates ahead. That's exactly what Cosmos felt like.
5. "Soon" and no date
Every announcement for Voyagers, Breach, Remnant, Xeno Arena, The Swarm, Cosmos and Forsaken says the update should be out "soon" on Switch. None of them gives a date, and the studio's own Forsaken page has buy buttons for Switch and Switch 2 and says nothing about timing. You just refresh the eShop and wait.
So who is responsible?
Honestly, I don't think there is one culprit. Our No Man's Sky review says Switch patches arrive weeks late because of Nintendo's validation process, and that's part of it. But Hello Games itself says Switch updates cost the most engineering time because of memory, and shipping PC first is a release choice, the same kind Stardew's creator described.
Only the review is Nintendo's. The rest is the memory work each update needs on Switch and when the studio decides to send the build.
What the wait costs
Playing with other people
No Man's Sky on Switch 2 has multiplayer, cross-play and cross-save. When one platform gets an update before the others and you try to join someone on a different version, you get the Version Mismatch error. Until your console catches up, your friends are out of reach, and so is the whole cross-play community. That's what the Cosmos weeks were like for me. It's a game about sharing a universe, and mine was sitting alone outside it.
Expeditions that end
Breach's expedition ran for about three weeks and The Swarm's for about eight. A wait as long as Voyagers' would have covered most of Breach, or all of it. I found no end date for Forsaken's content on Hello Games' page.
A patch that fixes bugs
Hotfix 5.58 reached Steam on March 4, 2025 and wasn't live on Switch the next day. A fix that arrives for one platform first leaves the others with the bug for longer.
My own wait
I have more than 350 hours in No Man's Sky, so I really care about this game.
After Cosmos, a discovery bug showed up and it killed it for me. I could still find new systems, fauna and flora, but the discoveries reset every time. The system map was wrong and bugged on every visit, and my discoveries kept vanishing. Nothing stopped me from playing. I stopped anyway, because in a game about discovering things, a game that forgets what you found takes away the whole reason to go out there.
So I waited for the fix, and it took 2 weeks after the patches came out on the other platforms. It was really frustrating. I wasn't waiting for new content or something exciting. I was waiting for the game to work again, and I knew it already worked for everyone else.
A big update is easy to wait for, because there's something fun at the end of it. A fix for a bug that doesn't block anything is a different kind of wait. Nothing is on fire, so nothing feels urgent, and you just look at a game you don't feel like opening.
What to do while you wait
You can't push the update through, but you can check by hand: select the game on the Home screen, press + or -, choose Software Update, then Via the Internet. If you play with friends, ask which version they're on before you start, so you don't hit a Version Mismatch error in the middle of a session.
Quick answers
Why isn't the No Man's Sky update on my Switch?
It hasn't passed Nintendo's release process yet, or Hello Games hasn't sent the Switch build yet. Both have happened before, and the studio says Switch takes the most engineering time for every update.
How long does No Man's Sky take to update on Switch?
From the dates I found, a few days to about three weeks. On my Switch 2 it has been about two weeks each time, and Voyagers in 2025 was the longest at 13 to 21 days.
Is Forsaken out on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2?
As of October 31, I haven't found a release. It came out on October 28 for the other platforms and "soon" is all anyone has said.
Is it Nintendo or Hello Games that causes the delay?
Both play a part. Nintendo reviews every build, Hello Games has said Switch updates cost the most engineering time because of memory, and the studio ships PC first. Nobody has tied the gap to one side alone.
Will the update reach Switch 2 and Switch 1 together?
Not always. For Voyagers, the Corvette content reached Switch 2 first, and the 1.6 update on Switch 1 didn't include the Corvette-class ships.
When this page changes
We'll update this page and our No Man's Sky review as soon as the update reaches the Switch 2.
