Sean Murray is no stranger to hyping up expectations, and that’s exactly what he’s been doing for the last several days on social media. The boss of No Man’s Sky studio Hello Games has been posting little emoji of our planet. Fans are taking the cryptic messages and running wild with them, speculating about a potential universal reset of the galactic exploration sim or even a new look at Light No Fire, the world-spanning fantasy MMO revealed at last year’s Game Awards.
On July 12, Murray tweeted a single Earth emoji. He quote-tweeted it the next day with three more Earth emoji, each showing a different part of its rotation. Then he retweeted both tweets. On July 15 he posted three Earth emoji again. Then he posted an “I want” emote pointing at three Earth emoji before retweeting the previous tweet. This is Murray code for something. Nobody’s quite sure what, but they all think it’s going to be huge.
The Hello Games cofounder has frequently issued cryptic teases for new updates to No Man’s Sky, the multiplayer sci-fi explorer featuring millions of procedural planets that’s gone from epic disappointment to the poster child for video game redemption arcs. So naturally, many fans’ minds have turned to their wishlists of unannounced features for the game. Murray’s mentions and the No Man’s Sky subreddit are full of players theorizing.
Some wonder whether the game will finally get rotating planets or other orbital mechanics. Others are guessing it might just be additional planets with new procedural generation tech unlike anything currently in the game’s sprawling cosmos. A few have gone full doomsday, proselytizing about a possible entire universal reset of the game. All player creations would get wiped and everyone would start off in a completely new reality.
It sounds exciting, and also like a massive disruption to a longtime playerbase that has spent a not-insignificant portion of their collective existence min-maxing No Man’s Sky and building wild stuff in it. Resets have happen a few times before, but players usually get a lot of warning. That’s why most seem to think something that drastic is off the table, and that Hello Games could potentially rework core elements of the game even without doing that.
Then there’s Light No Fire, the fantasy survival game that Hello Games announced over a year ago. Murray is leading a small team of developers to create an RPG where the map is the size of Earth, because why under-promise and over-deliver when you can pitch players the moon, or something even bigger than that? “I’m convinced it’s either Light No Fire or the biggest No Man’s Sky update ever,” tweeted streamer CharOnTwitch. “Never seen Sean hype something this much before.”
Light No Fire has a Steam page but we haven’t heard anything else about it since the announcement. It’s possible Murray is psyching fans out for a new trailer or some other reveal about the game, perhaps with a deeper dive planned for Gamescom next month. August also marks the eighth anniversary of No Man’s Sky’s original launch, the perfect time to completely reinvent the game again with something entirely new. Maybe players are finally going to get those long-requested custom space stations.
