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Biomes
May 16, 2026 at 08:11 AM
Re-embedded contextual screenshot after content rewrite
Light No Fire's planet is roughly Earth-sized and procedurally generated, which means biome variety has to do significant work to keep an enormous space interesting. The press kit describes the world as massively varied and dense, filled with immersive biomes, unique enemies and valuable resources to discover. This article catalogues the biome types visible in the reveal trailer and noted in official materials, with the caveat that a full biome roster has not been published.
Biomes are the planet's structural organisation. They determine what creatures spawn where, what resources can be gathered, what climate hazards exist, and what visual character a region has. On an Earth-sized planet, biomes also serve as the navigation reference for players (you remember a region as the snowy mountains north of the desert, not by coordinates), and they shape which traversal mode is appropriate.
Hello Games has emphasised depth over breadth as the design philosophy: one planet that should feel as varied as a universe. The procedural generation article covers how the planet is built. This article focuses on what visible biome types have been confirmed.
The following environments have been identified from the December 2023 reveal trailer and official materials. Because the planet is Earth-sized, there is room for far more biome variety than what has been shown publicly.
Dense green forests with tall trees and thick underbrush appear frequently in the trailer. The environments look temperate, with mature trees, ferns, and ground cover. Forests are shown as both travel corridors and combat arenas. Wooden building materials in the trailer appear to come from forested regions.
Open grassy plains are visible in several shots, with wide sight lines and scattered trees. These environments seem well-suited for ground mounts travel. Grasslands transition smoothly into other biome types in the trailer footage.
Arid landscapes with sandy terrain and palm-like vegetation appear in the trailer. At least one desert region is clearly visible. Whether the deserts have hot-climate survival mechanics (heat exhaustion, dehydration, day-night temperature swings) has not been confirmed.
Ice-covered terrain and snow-blanketed mountain peaks appear in the trailer. These likely represent high-altitude or polar environments. Survival mechanics (cold damage, freezing, layered clothing) are not detailed but are genre standard for survival sandboxes.
Sean Murray described the mountains as real mountains, not videogame mountains, but mountains that are miles high, taller than Everest. The trailer confirms massive mountain formations that tower over the surrounding terrain. Murray also stated that every mountain can be climbed. Mountain regions appear to span altitudes from tree line forests at the base up to bare rock and snow at the summit.
Sean Murray described the planet's geography in vivid terms: you can see rivers and canyons and continents. The trailer shows deep canyon formations and river systems cutting through varied terrain. One shot shows a dragon diving between narrow canyon walls, giving a sense of the vertical scale. Rivers also appear to be navigable; whether smaller watercraft work on rivers is not stated.
Oceans are a full biome category, not just boundaries. The trailer shows coastal areas where land meets water, and underwater sequences with aquatic life and coral-like formations. Murray described the oceans as as dark and deep as our own, comparing them to Earth's actual oceans. See oceans and sailing for details on swimming, surface travel, and crewed ship crossings.
The trailer shows underwater sequences with coral-like formations, kelp, fish, and other aquatic creatures. Whether the underwater regions are continuous from coast to deep ocean, or discrete diving sites, is not confirmed. Pressure mechanics, depth limits, and dedicated underwater enemies are not described.
A volcanic environment is visible in the trailer footage, with what appears to be active lava or geothermal activity. How volcanic biomes interact with survival systems (heat damage, gas hazards) and what unique resources or creatures populate them is not detailed.
The trailer shows continuous movement between biome types without hard boundaries. Forests gradually thin into grasslands; grasslands give way to desert. This suggests procedural blending between biome zones rather than the abrupt cutoffs seen in many open-world games. The procedural generation engine likely uses noise-based biome distribution with smooth transitions, but Hello Games has not described the algorithm in detail.
The Steam page mentions that biomes contain different resources and unique enemies. Different environments almost certainly contain different material types, creature populations, and environmental hazards. The specifics of which resources appear where have not been detailed. The resource gathering article covers what is known about what can be gathered; the combat and creatures article covers what is known about the creatures encountered.
The trailer shows a variety of creatures across biome types: flying creatures in mountain regions, aquatic life in the oceans, and ground-dwelling fauna in forests and grasslands. Boss-scale creatures also appear, dwarfing the player character in scale. Whether specific bosses are tied to specific biomes is unknown.
Rain and stormy conditions appear in the trailer over land environments. Whether weather is dynamic, region-specific, or seasonal has not been documented. The press kit framing of survival as a core pillar suggests climate hazards will matter, but no temperature systems, blizzards, sandstorms, or drought mechanics have been described.
Earth itself has dozens of formally classified biomes, plus countless local variants. Light No Fire's claim to massively varied and dense biomes implies more than the eight or nine types visible in the trailer. The biomes shown in the reveal trailer are probably representative samples rather than the full catalogue. Tropical jungle, tundra, swamp, savanna, taiga, alpine meadow, mangrove, salt flat, and similar biome types could all plausibly exist on the planet without contradicting anything Hello Games has said.
The complete list of biome types beyond what is shown in the trailer.
Whether biomes have distinct sub-types (e.g. boreal versus tropical forest, alpine versus arctic snow).
How biome boundaries are placed (random, latitude-based, climate-based, story-driven).
Whether biome populations shift with seasons, day-night cycles, or events.
Whether players can modify biome state through building, deforestation, or other actions.
Whether magical or supernatural biomes exist (haunted forests, enchanted islands, ruined regions).
What climate and weather effects apply per biome (heat, cold, humidity, storms).
For the broader geography that biomes are placed within, see world and planet. For the technology that generates biome distribution, see procedural generation. For specific environment types covered in detail, see oceans and sailing, and for what travels through biomes, see wings over the world.
