Far and away the most interesting new-game announcement to come out of last night’s The Game Awards was Light No Fire. Granted, it wasn’t the best show for multiplayer titles to begin with as we noted last night, but Light No Fire could’ve carried it alone in a better year too. The game will be the second major title out of No Man’s Sky’s Hello Games, and based on what they’ve shown and said, it pretty much looks like a survival sandbox MMO.
Now, we need to point out right now that they are not calling it an MMORPG. On Steam, Hello Games has binned it under online co-op multiplayer; on social media, gamers are calling it No Man’s Skyrim. But the scale of the world, the emphasis on global community and persistence, and the number of people shown together in the trailer suggest it’s more ambitious than a mere survival sandbox, though it’s probably for the best that HG isn’t overselling it, given what it went through with the early stages of No Man’s Sky. Here’s the pitch.
“Light No Fire is a game about adventure, building, survival and exploration together. Set on a fantasy planet the size of Earth, it brings the depth of a role playing game to the freedom of a survival sandbox. Carve a life together. Meet players from across the globe, build a life, explore and survive together. Construct persistent buildings and communities, or strike out alone to discover the world for others. A truly open world, with no boundaries at a scale never attempted before. A massively varied and dense planet filled with immersive biomes, unique enemies and valuable resources to discover. Light No Fire presents you with an ancient earth to uncover. One where you’re not the hero. Thick with lore, mystery and a constant fight for survival. Inspired by the adventure, charm and imagination that we love from classic fantasy. Every mountain can be climbed, and below them lie endless vistas, oceans and continents perhaps no others have seen. Who will climb the tallest mountains, who will find the deepest sea? Set sail across vast oceans and rivers, ride wild beasts through fantastical landscapes, fly dragons over undiscovered landscapes.”
The video shows off some of the scale of the procedurally generated world, as well as mounts, swimming, flying, construction, boats, harvesting, and bunnies. What. It has bunnies.
I don’t want to hype this up too much either – there’s not so much as a whisper about a release window – but I can tell you that after this trailer dropped, I went into our already-written Most Anticipated award and added this to my picks.
