Gameplay

Light No Fire combines survival sandbox mechanics with role-playing depth on a single shared planet roughly the size of Earth. The official press kit summarises the loop as adventure, building, survival and exploration together, and Hello Games has been consistent about those four pillars from the December 2023 reveal forward. This article gives an overview of how the loops connect; specific systems have their own pages linked throughout.

The Four Pillars

Hello Games describes Light No Fire through four overlapping pillars rather than a single core loop. They are: a multiplayer Earth, a procedural Earth, a fantasy Earth, and an unexplored Earth. The overview article expands on the pillar framing; this article focuses on the gameplay loop they imply.

Exploration

Exploration is the activity the planet's scale is built to support. The world is one shared procedural planet, so any direction you choose to walk in is a direction nobody else may have explored yet. The world and planet article covers the geography in detail; the biomes article covers what kinds of environment you will travel through.

Confirmed exploration activities, drawn from the reveal trailer and press kit:

• Climbing mountains. Sean Murray confirmed every mountain can be climbed; some are taller than Everest.

• Diving into the deep ocean. The trailer shows underwater swim sequences with aquatic life and coral-like formations.

• Crossing oceans by boat. See oceans and sailing and boats and ships.

• Riding wild creatures across land. See ground mounts.

• Flying on the backs of dragons and giant birds. See dragons and flying mounts.

• Discovering ruins, obelisks, and ancient structures with lore implications. See lore and setting.

Building

Building is treated as a co-equal pillar rather than a side activity. Structures you construct stay in the shared world, so other players walking through that area later will see what you built. The base building article covers what is known about construction.

Confirmed building activities:

• Single-player houses and shelter from collected materials (wood, stone, and what the biomes provide).

• Multi-storey structures and settlement-scale clusters.

• Persistent buildings that survive log-out, visible to other players.

• Community-scale construction (groups of players building near each other to form towns).

• Ship building, using the same underlying technology Hello Games shipped in the August 2025 Voyagers update for No Man's Sky.

Survival

The official description calls the world a constant fight for survival. The planet is described as ancient and dangerous, with hostile creatures, harsh climate zones, and an emphasis on resource scarcity in some regions. Specific survival systems (hunger, thirst, temperature, fatigue) have not been documented in detail, but the genre framing and the four-pillar emphasis on survival suggest most of them will be present in some form.

Combat is part of the survival loop. The combat and creatures article covers what has been shown so far: swords, bows, staves, spears, magical effects, and skeletal enemies among others. The magic article covers what is known about spellcasting.

Crafting and Gathering

Resource gathering across different biomes is the input layer to crafting and building. Hello Games has confirmed that biomes contain different resources, so what you can make depends on where you have explored. The resource gathering article covers what kinds of materials have been hinted at; crafting covers the limited details on crafting recipes and progression. Both stay carefully on the side of what has been shown rather than what fans expect from the genre.

Multiplayer And Cooperation

Light No Fire is a single shared world for every player, not an instanced or sharded multiplayer game. The Steam page lists single-player and online co-op as the supported modes. Solo play is fully supported (the official description includes strike out alone to discover the world for others) and cooperative play is woven into the geography: ocean crossings need large boats and crews. The multiplayer article goes deeper.

Character And Progression

Players will create characters drawn from a roster of humanoid species, including humans alongside animal-headed humanoids like rabbits, foxes, badgers, bears, wolves, and otters. Hello Games has not shown a character-creation UI, has not named which species are selectable versus NPC, and has not described whether species affect stats. The citizens of the new world article tracks what has been shown versus what remains an open question.

Hello Games has described Light No Fire as bringing the depth of a role playing game to the freedom of a survival sandbox. The specifics of the RPG progression are not yet public; no skill trees, level systems, attribute pools, or class structures have been shown.

Where Gameplay Has Not Been Shown

Several systems that fans typically ask about are still completely undocumented as of May 2026:

Related Reading

For specific systems, the linked articles above are the source of truth as of this update. For higher-level context, see the overview article. For the studio's development history and timeline of updates, see development history. For how Light No Fire's design diverges from Hello Games' prior work, see no Man's Sky comparison.