Building as a core pillar
Light No Fire is built on four pillars: adventure, building, survival, and exploration. Building is not a side activity tacked on after the main loop. It is one of the four things the game is fundamentally about. You collect resources from the planet's biomes, craft materials, and construct structures that persist in the shared world for other players to find.
Persistent structures
Everything you build stays. If you put up a house on a cliffside, it will be there when you come back. Other players exploring that area will see it too. This persistence is what separates Light No Fire's building from temporary survival game bases that vanish when you log off.
The game actively encourages players to build near each other. The official description talks about constructing "persistent buildings and communities." Over time, the planet should accumulate player-made settlements, outposts, bridges, and whatever else people decide to put together.
Construction details
The reveal trailer showed a range of building types and styles:
Wooden structures with visible timber framing
Stone buildings and walls
Multi-story buildings, at least two or three floors
Small standalone houses
Larger settlement-scale clusters of buildings
The aesthetic is medieval fantasy rather than sci-fi. No metal plating or holographic walls. These are buildings made from materials you would expect to find on a fantasy version of Earth: wood, stone, and whatever the biomes provide.
The specific variety of building pieces (wall types, roof styles, doors, windows, furniture, decorations) has not been detailed. How much freedom the building system gives you compared to, say, Valheim or Minecraft is still unknown.
Community building
Multiple players can build in the same area to form communities. The multiplayer system supports this directly. A group of friends could claim a valley and build a town together. Strangers could stumble on each other's buildings and add their own nearby. The planet is shared, so communities grow organically as more players settle in an area.
Crafting and resources
Crafting is confirmed. The Steam page includes crafting as a store tag, and resource gathering is part of the survival loop. You collect varied resources across different biomes.
Weapon crafting is specifically confirmed. Given the fantasy setting, expect swords, bows, shields, and similar gear. See the combat and creatures article for what weapons have been shown.
The details are thin beyond that. Specific resource types (ore, wood varieties, rare materials), crafting recipes, workbench mechanics, and progression systems for crafting have not been shown. The Steam page says players will "collect varied resources" but does not list what those resources are.
Ship building
Ship construction is confirmed. Sean Murray stated directly that the real oceans need "large boats and crews" to cross. You do not just find a boat sitting on a dock. You build one.
The No Man's Sky Voyagers update in 2025 introduced custom ship building with walkable interiors and crew capacity. Murray confirmed the technology is shared between the two games: "Much of the technology we're introducing with Voyagers is shared with our next game, Light No Fire." So the ship building in Light No Fire likely uses the same underlying system, adapted from spaceships to sailing vessels.
What this means in practice: you will probably be able to build ships piece by piece, walk around inside them, and bring other players aboard as crew. The scale and customization of the Voyagers ships suggest Light No Fire's boats will be more than simple rafts.
What remains unknown
Full list of buildable structure types and pieces
Resource types and where to find them
Crafting recipe system and progression
Building limits per player or per area
Whether other players can damage or destroy your buildings
Interior decoration and furniture options
Defensive structures (walls, gates, traps)
Hello Games has a history of expanding building systems after launch. No Man's Sky's base building went from basic to extraordinarily detailed over years of updates. Light No Fire will likely follow a similar trajectory. See the combat and creatures article for weapon crafting details.