"Earth-sized" survival game Light No Fire has "real oceans to traverse, needing large boats and crews," says Hello Games boss Sean Murray: "Much of the technology we're introducing" for No Man's Sky is "shared with our next game"

Today's massive No Man's Sky update, Voyagers, a patch so big "the game has had to be reworked" to accommodate it, apparently doubles as a sign of things to come in developer Hello Games' upcoming open-world survival game Light No Fire.

Studio boss Sean Murray briefly mentions Light No Fire in a message accompanying the Voyagers update.

"Much of the technology we’re introducing with Voyagers is shared with our next game, Light No Fire, which is a truly open world, a shared Earth-sized planet, with real oceans to traverse, needing large boats and crews," he writes. "We love that we get to share this technology with players early."

The focus of Voyagers is a new mega-ship system that allows No Man's Sky players to construct huge craft, complete with realistic quarters and compartments, that can fit a whole squad of players as they fly around space. Imagine an apartment building with wings and thrusters. It sounds like the Light No Fire equivalent would be huge sailboats or rowboats manned by folks eager to tackle the seas.

Granted, I don't know that hyper-realistic sailing, which could in theory amount to staring down a wooden hull or unchanging horizon for hours and hours of game time, has the same zing as rocketing around space. But with the right systems, good friends, big ol' monster helpers, and some good dangers or discoveries, I reckon it could be pretty fun. And if nothing else, you've almost got to appreciate the ambition.

This has been a recurring theme with No Man's Sky updates for over a year now, with Hello Games regularly demonstrating new technologies that will benefit both games even as Light No Fire remains largely an enigma. We have a few granular details for the upcoming survival game, and can only speculate as to its release date.

We do know Hello Games still has some of the biggest eyes in the industry, promising a stupidly large fantasy sandbox that goes all-in on one enormous, simulated planet instead of a universe filled with a zillion planets. Light No Fire is, on paper, Earth: The Server, which certainly raises an eyebrow.

No Man's Sky lead jokes GTA 6's impressive flip-flop physics might be why the game is delayed, is immediately met by Light No Fire hopefuls desperate for an update of their own.