Sean Murray Says Hello Games Still Building Light No Fire

Hello Games has reached a major milestone with the 10th anniversary of No Man’s Sky, but the studio’s attention is already on what’s next. In a new update from founder Sean Murray, Light No Fire is still in active development—and the reason the game isn’t being shown more often comes down to how Hello Games wants to time its reveal.

Murray says Light No Fire continues to progress and that he personally plays the game nearly every day. He also frames the project as both ambitious and “wild,” adding that he’s eager to show players what the team has been building. However, Hello Games is taking a different approach than it did before the release of No Man’s Sky, choosing not to spend months or years releasing a steady stream of small previews while the game is still far from ready.

According to Murray, the studio wants to stay focused on development rather than running a long, continuous pre-launch marketing cycle. He points to his experience with No Man’s Sky as the main lesson learned, recalling how much time and effort promotional interviews and commitments demanded while the team was trying to finish the game at the same time. Hello Games does not want to repeat that same situation with Light No Fire.

There’s also no indication that the silence is caused by a lack of progress. Murray estimates that around 50 developers are currently working on Light No Fire, and he says they have been prepared and enthusiastic about showing more for some time. The bottleneck is instead about readiness—Hello Games is waiting until it can present Light No Fire in a way that clearly explains what the game is and what it will feel like to play, rather than releasing short updates simply to keep attention on the project.

Murray’s hint about timing suggests the next time Hello Games speaks meaningfully about Light No Fire, it intends to help players understand the kind of experience it’s creating, not just tease fragments. No specific date was provided for that next showcase.

What is clear is the direction of the project: Light No Fire aims to bring part of No Man’s Sky’s technical and procedural DNA into a massive shared fantasy world. The pitch centers on exploration, survival, and planetary-scale adventures—an ambitious shift from space to fantasy that Hello Games says it’s still building now, with the current silence treated as a deliberate development decision.