The end of the year is hurtling toward us like a rampaging sandworm that devours time, and that means every game you own is currently pitching you hard to vote for them in the Steam Awards. And not just the new releases, either—thanks to a category called “Labor of Love,” you can nominate games that have been “out for a while” provided the devs have continued to “nurture and support their creation.”
No Man’s Sky certainly falls into that category: it’s been out for nine years and it’s still getting updated regularly multiple times a year with new features. In 2025 alone, there have been updates that added new planets to explore, fossilized skeletons to dig up, a settlement management system, and huge new customizable starships. And as always, these updates are completely free.
But there’s another game’s labor we want to hear about, right? In the midst of celebrating the year’s accomplishments in No Man’s Sky, Sean Murray also mentioned the other project in the works over at Hello Games: the planet-sized open world sandbox of Light No Fire.
“In the background, another tiny team at Hello is continuing at pace on our next Labor of Love, Light No Fire, and we know a lot of you are keen to hear more,” Murray said on Steam.
Unfortunately, he declined to let us hear more. “For now, it suffices to say that I am really pleased with the progress we are making and I think it’s going to be something really special,” Murray said.
That’s not exactly a geyser of information, but the sum of those two sentences might be more than the parts. For instance, referring to the development of Light No Fire as happening “in the background” is interesting, or perhaps deflating if you were under the impression that the entire team at Hello Games was elbow-deep in the game. It sounds like No Man’s Sky is still largely the focus for the studio.
Likewise, the term “tiny team” isn’t all that encouraging either, if you were hoping, for example, that Murray might be announcing a release date for Light No Fire at The Game Awards next month. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it doesn’t sound like we’ll be lighting no fires anytime soon.
Finally, “I think it’s going to be something really special” isn’t the type of thing you’d say if, for example, it was 95% done and was just being polished for release in the near future. I feel like it might be described as “it is something really special” instead.
Unless, of course, you’re deliberately lowering people’s expectations just so you can utterly blow them away by announcing at The Game Awards that the game is done and it’s out right now! So, maybe it’s just a bluff? Half-Life fans are twisting themselves into pretzels to predict that Half-Life 3 is imminent, I don’t see any reason Light No Fire fans shouldn’t do the same.
You can read Murray’s full post on Steam.
