Light No Fire and No Man’s Sky Are Two Sides of the Same Coin

Highlights

Both No Man’s Sky and Light No Fire offer players massive game worlds to explore, showcasing the size and scale that Hello Games is known for.
The freeform gameplay and player-driven action found in No Man’s Sky is carried over to Light No Fire, allowing players to create their own adventures in a sandbox environment.
The addition of cooperative multiplayer in Light No Fire represents an evolution of the successful formula in No Man’s Sky, potentially setting a new standard for the open-world genre.

Ten years after wowing audiences at VGX with the debut trailer for its sprawling sci-fi title, No Man’s Sky, Hello Games’ head Sean Murray took to the stage at The Game Awards 2023 to raise the bar for open-world games once again. But rather than announcing a No Man’s Sky sequel as many had anticipated, Murray instead unveiled the studio’s wildly ambitious fantasy title, Light No Fire. Moving the action away from the infinite reaches of space and down to the surface of a single planet, Light No Fire is a massive tonal shift from the planet-hopping gameplay of its predecessor.

But even though they differ wildly at first glance, Light No Fire and No Man’s Sky share some striking similarities. The most obvious of these is their size, with each presenting players with a truly massive game world to explore. Both also take a decidedly freeform approach to their mechanics, with the few details about Light No Fire revealed so far hinting at gameplay that echoes the player-directed fun found in No Man’s Sky. Although they occupy different genres, both represent an attempt by Hello Games to reimagine the concept of what an open-world game can be.

The Sheer Size of No Man’s Sky and Light No Fire’s Worlds Are Practically Unrivaled

When it comes to the size of its game worlds, Hello Games tends to take things to extremes. For No Man’s Sky, this meant letting players roam through an expansive cosmos populated with countless worlds, whereas Light No Fire appears to be giving gamers a single, Earth-sized planet to explore.

It is in this distinction that Light No Fire makes maybe its biggest distinction, having one continuous, ever-expanding world. To deliver these sorts of sprawling experiences, Hello Games has relied heavily on procedural generation, with the planet Light No Fire takes place on likely serving as the culmination of lessons learned from the procedurally generated planets populating No Man’s Sky.

Though neither title necessarily breaks new ground in terms of gameplay, with the trailer for Light No Fire showcasing seemingly the same sort of survival and exploration mechanics found in No Man’s Sky, their sheer scale and focus on player-driven action set them apart from competitors. Like its predecessor, Light No Fire seems designed to give players an unimaginably immense sandbox in which to create their own adventures rather than whisking them through a traditional campaign.

This willingness to let players write their own stories served No Man’s Sky well, and it could prove to be even more crucial to Light No Fire’s success.

Light No Fire Represents an Evolution of a Winning Formula

Outside of the curated Expeditions in No Man’s Sky players are largely left to their own devices, and this freeform approach to gameplay has helped it develop a loyal fanbase over the years. With the addition of cooperative multiplayer to this already successful formula, Light No Fire could represent a bold step forward for Hello Games and the open-world genre overall.

Hello Games hasn’t yet revealed the scope of these multiplayer mechanics, but letting players work together to reshape an Earth-sized world is wildly ambitious for Light No Fire. Though finding a way to let gamers leave their mark on the world in a meaningful way could prove difficult regardless of whether Light No Fire features a single, massive instance or relies on the smaller servers familiar to MMO players, Hello Games seems to believe it’s up to the challenge. If it succeeds, Light No Fire will likely have an influence on open-world games for years to come.

While Light No Fire’s solitary planet may seem limiting compared to the endless space of No Man’s Sky, the pair are two sides of the same coin in terms of their scope and scale. And if it can deliver the sort of expansive, exploration-based multiplayer experience that many players hoped No Man’s Sky would be when it was first announced, Light No Fire could be Hello Games’ most impressive release yet.