Abandoned systems in No Man's Sky: what they are and how to find them
What an abandoned system is in No Man's Sky, how many there are (about one in eighteen), what you find in their empty stations, and how to find one.
What is an abandoned system?
An abandoned system was settled once, then left. Its space station still stands, damaged and empty, with the old layout of stations from before the NEXT update. Nobody trades there, nobody gives missions, and its planets have no one to meet.
It is not the same as an uncharted system, which never had a dominant lifeform at all. See Gek, Korvax, Vy'keen.
How many are there?
On one million systems predicted across Euclid, 5.6 % of systems are abandoned: about one in eighteen. In the catalogue of Euclid, players recorded more than 300 of them.
They still have a race
An abandoned system keeps the name of the race that left it. In the catalogue of Euclid, abandoned systems split almost evenly: about 116 Gek, 98 Korvax and 107 Vy'keen. Browse them on the lifeforms page.
How to find one
- On the galaxy map: the system description reads abandoned, in place of the race.
- On this site: ask the Oracle for an "abandoned system near" a region.
Why go there
For the silence, for the photos of a station gone dark, or for an abandoned base on its own. The Adrift expedition, in 2024, built a whole journey on that feeling: a universe with no one left.
Found an abandoned system worth the trip? Contribute it.
Last updated: 1 November 2026