No Man’s Sky is Still the Ultimate Labor of Love
The year is wrapping up and Steam is once again nudging everyone to vote in the Steam Awards. One of the most interesting categories is Labor of Love. It celebrates games that have been out for a while but are still getting serious long term support from their developers.
No Man’s Sky is a perfect fit for this category. The game is now around nine years old, yet Hello Games continues to roll out major free updates multiple times a year. In 2025 alone players have seen a surprising amount of new content.
Recent updates have added:
- New planets to discover and explore
- Fossilized skeletons that you can dig up like an interstellar paleontologist
- A settlement management system so you can run and grow your own community
- Huge customizable starships that give you even more freedom in how you travel and fight
All of this has arrived as free content, with no subscription or expansion pricing. For PC gamers this kind of ongoing support matters a lot. A game you bought years ago is still evolving, still taking advantage of modern hardware and still giving you reasons to come back.
That level of commitment explains why No Man’s Sky regularly pops up in conversations around the Steam Awards. It has gone from a rocky launch to one of the most respected long running PC games, the sort players keep installed on their SSDs because there is always something new to try.
Light No Fire: Big Ambition, Small Team
While celebrating No Man’s Sky and its award chances, Hello Games founder Sean Murray also mentioned the studio’s next big project: Light No Fire. It is described as a planet sized open world sandbox, which instantly gets the attention of anyone into survival, crafting and exploration on PC.
In a short message on Steam, Murray called Light No Fire the studio’s next Labor of Love and confirmed that development is still moving at a good pace. That is about as far as the hard details go. There was no release window, no new footage and no deep dive into features.
However, there are a few interesting clues in how he described the project:
- Development is happening in the background, which suggests No Man’s Sky remains the main focus for most of the studio.
- He called it a tiny team, hinting that Light No Fire is being built by a smaller group rather than the full company.
- He said he is really pleased with the progress and thinks it is going to be something really special, which sounds more like a project still in active development than one that is nearly finished.
For PC gamers hoping for a release date reveal at the upcoming Game Awards, those phrases may sound a bit deflating. A background project built by a tiny team does not scream ready to ship next month. It feels more like a long term effort that is still taking shape.
On the other hand, Hello Games has a bit of a history with surprises. There is always the possibility that the studio is simply keeping expectations low and planning a big reveal later. The speculation around surprise announcements is part of the fun for fans, especially with how often the PC space sees shadow drops and sudden launches.
Where This Leaves PC Players Right Now
So what does all this mean if you are a PC player trying to decide what to play or vote for this year?
First, No Man’s Sky remains one of the strongest examples of long term support on PC. If you enjoy:
- Exploring procedurally generated worlds
- Upgrading your ship and gear
- Building bases and running settlements
- Watching a game grow for years without paid expansions
then it is absolutely worth another look or a return visit. Each update makes the game more hardware friendly and feature rich, which is great if you have upgraded your PC since you last played. Better CPUs and GPUs simply let you push higher resolutions, smoother frame rates and more detailed worlds.
Second, Light No Fire is still mostly a promise. The concept of a massive, seamless planet sized sandbox is exciting, especially for players who love open world survival games on PC. But right now the studio is keeping concrete details close to the chest.
For the moment, the most realistic takeaway is:
- No Man’s Sky is still the main event at Hello Games and is likely to keep getting updates.
- Light No Fire is actively in development but probably not on the verge of release.
- Any big reveal will almost certainly come through major events like The Game Awards or dedicated PC showcases.
If your Steam wishlist is looking empty and you are browsing for something to be excited about, keeping an eye on events like the PC Gaming Show Most Wanted can help. These shows often highlight exactly the kind of ambitious PC first projects that push our hardware and give us new worlds to get lost in.
For now, No Man’s Sky continues to be one of the most impressive examples of a PC game that never stops evolving, while Light No Fire sits on the horizon as a mysterious next step for Hello Games and for players who love massive, boundary pushing sandboxes.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/sean-murray-just-crushed-my-hopes-of-playing-light-no-fire-anytime-soon-by-by-describing-the-dev-team-as-tiny-and-working-in-the-background-at-hello-games/
