Celebrating the 10th anniversary of No Man's Sky, Hello Games director Sean Murray discussed why the studio hasn't shown Light No Fire since its 2023 reveal, detailing team size and long-term post-launch plans. First revealed at The Game Awards in December 2023, Light No Fire represents the next ambitious open-world survival project from Hello Games. Trading the space exploration of No Man's Sky for a fantasy RPG set on a procedural, earth-sized planet, the title has remained entirely silent for over two and a half years. In interviews surrounding the 10th anniversary of No Man's Sky, studio founder and director Sean Murray explained why fans haven't seen more footage, while offering new details about the game's development and small team size. Why Hello Games Held Back Marketing Murray admitted that his original plan was to showcase a deeper gameplay dive roughly six months after the initial teaser, targeted for Summer Game Fest 2024. However, after watching the game shoot up to the number two spot on Steam's most-wishlisted charts without additional promotional effort, he decided to pull back on active marketing. And I was just like, 'OK, that's enough. You know, we don't need to say any more. Why? Why do any marketing?' Reflecting on the whirlwind press tour surrounding the 2016 launch of No Man's Sky, Murray noted that he prefers building the game quietly rather than dealing with external hype cycles. While the team has been 'ready' to show more for a while, he remains content working on it without worrying about outside expectations. Small Team Size and Shared Tech with No Man's Sky Despite the massive scale of an entire simulated planet, Light No Fire is being built by a surprisingly small team. Hello Games currently employs around 50 people in total, with 'anywhere between 12 and 20 people' working directly on Light No Fire day-to-day—a team size comparable to No Man's Sky at its initial release. The studio relies on an internal suite of procedural tools and shared technology across both projects. For example, multi-crew sailing ships designed for Light No Fire's massive oceans directly inspired the buildable multi-crew spacecraft introduced in No Man's Sky's 2025 Voyagers update. Long-Term Post-Launch Vision Murray confirmed that Light No Fire is designed to follow the same post-launch development model as No Man's Sky, using its fantasy setting as a broad canvas for continuous content expansions and community feedback. Whether we'll be lucky enough to get to work on it for 10 years after launch, I don't know, but I'd like to. I've worked on it for seven years now, and I'm still really enjoying it. While Hello Games has not confirmed a release window or official gameplay date, Murray reassured fans that development is progressing steadily. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EurwCUKajdc
