Is Light No Fire Connected to No Man's Sky?

All images in this post use screenshots from No Man's Sky, created by Hello Games.

Light No Fire is the new game announced by

the makers of No Man's Sky, and quite frankly it looks amazing. But, it also looks familiar, in fact it looks a lot like No Man's Sky, and it may go deeper than just its aesthetic style. No Man's Sky has had content for years that potentially connects to Light No Fire, it's just that without the announcement of the latter, we couldn't have realized there was a connection to anything. It's also possible that there's been a connection all the way since No Man's Sky's announcement, aside from the little fun references in the trailer of Light No Fire made to its cosmic sister game. It's time to find out whether these two games are just similar or if there's more to it than that.

THE TRAVELLER

No Man's Sky actually features a character possibly from Hello Games's brand new world, though of course given the nature of the game, it could be many Travellers or just one, it's a bit vague. The game features a species called the Travellers, who are very alien beings, many of whom don't even look similar to each other. This species is long dead for the most part, with Travellers seen in space stations within the game being something akin to technological ghosts. They're there but not there, they have fractured memories, and they can always point you to their grave.

One of these dead Travellers seems quite confused, asking the player "Who do you serve? Which baron is the master of this place?" when spoken to. The game notes that the way this Traveller speaks, their mannerisms, even the way they look, all of it seems "archaic," and the Traveller even proves their ancient ways by pulling out a multi-sword, as opposed to the game's normal multi-tools which are essentially multipurpose guns. If you play along with the Traveller and claim you are the baron of this place, then they will immediately show you respect and tell you they have a message from the "Great King" to bend the knee or die.

None of this is a thing in No Man's Sky outside of this conversation, so is it possible this Traveller is from whatever world Light No Fire takes place in? This dialogue was added in 2020, with development starting on Light No Fire roughly 2 years prior to that. Hello Games has emphasized through the Artemis storyline that the boundaries between worlds are collapsing, which initially was the reason for multiplayer being added to the game. Perhaps they've continued to collapse and are now leaking very different worlds into that of No Man's Sky.

The Traveller seems more futuristic than anybody in Light No Fire, but perhaps that game is set far in the past and the Traveller is from a time more recently, before the space age but when they were developing things like multi-swords, and they no longer looked quite human (or quite like any species thus far seen in Light No Fire).

THE ATLAS AND THE CRIMSON

The first trailer for both of these games ended with a look at a big red orb thing surrounded at least partly by triangular geometry, in one case being much more simple like a diamond. Both of these are very similar to each other, and in No Man's Sky, that red thing was the Atlas, which proved to be central to the game world and plot of a number of the stories within the game at launch as well as after, even today. It's incredibly important to that world, so given the way they showed that similar image in Light No Fire, it's easy to wonder if perhaps they're connected, and it seems they may be quite extremely connected.

While the Atlas is very important to No Man's Sky, it's unclear whether the Atlas has ever actually been seen in the game. While most assume it has, the things you interact with that look like that image are always referred to as "Atlas interfaces" by the game itself, with characters occasionally seeming to assume that those are the Atlas. But the Atlas is essentially the creator of No Man's Sky in the lore of the game, and it always seems to be very much singular. These interfaces are many, they are large but nowhere near planet sized, more like the size of a space station. They haven't even always had the same red orb at their cores, indicating that each interface is in fact a separate thing that looks slightly different. So if these are all interfaces, where is the Atlas?

You may have guessed the potential location: Light No Fire. Since we don't know the name of that object, let's just call it the Crimson, because it shares its look with the Atlas of No Man's Sky, and there seems to be a substance referred to as "Crimson" within that game that sort of breaks reality when it shows up. The Crimson looks like the crimson heart of the Atlas broken free. The triangular structure holding it up could well be what remains of its former container, the diamond shape of the Atlas, or perhaps it hasn't yet been put in that container, supporting this game being at an earlier time than No Man's Sky. We can't quite know if these connections are true yet, but the similarities are just in such important areas that it's hard to assume they don't mean something.

SKY FEEDS FIRE FEEDS SKY

As mentioned earlier, No Man's Sky put great effort into explaining that the boundaries between worlds were collapsing, which is why multiplayer began to exist, and why it has grown more robust over time as the boundaries fail. The game has also included lore explanations for new ships, multi-tools, races, vehicles, expiditions, settlements, and really just about everything. It would be almost more of a surprise if these games didn't connect than if they did, because they have clearly fed into each other.

Why else would No Man's Sky have its new staffs? Why do the large crab-like corrupted sentinels look almost identical (except considerably more robotic) to the giant crab that can be briefly seen in Light No Fire's trailer? Why does taking off on a dragon or bird look so very similar to lifting off with a ship in No Man's Sky? The similarities are so very many and Hello Games has shown their love of explaining meta details, like why features are added to a game. These games have clearly fed into each other in terms of development, with many features being only somewhat tweaked between each game, and that's not a problem at all. But when these games seem to face such a similar development by a handful of members of the same studio, with similar mindsets to their gameplay (building community, surviving, etc.), wouldn't it be a shock if the developers included no connection at all?

THE THEORY

Let's wrap all of this together now that we've lain out all the pieces. It seems quite possible and potentially likely that these games are deeply connected in terms of their worlds, in no small part because they are clearly connected in terms of their features. We know there are many separate realities in the lore of No Man's Sky, and we know that there seemed to be much more togetherness back when the original Travellers were alive, but that stopped at some point and they all died. We also know one of these Travellers did exist in a medieval world, though they were probably a bit more advanced than what we've seen in Light No Fire so far, depending on what a multi-sword is, and we know the Atlas imagery is very similar to the final shot in their new game trailer, and that we perhaps haven't met the Atlas yet.

All of this paints a picture of Light No Fire being a world far in the past, before the Gek, the Korvax, and the Vy'keen ever existed. But with the oddities in time and reality in No Man's Sky, perhaps these worlds are being pulled together. The Atlas once allowed many people to coexist on planets and build for themselves, perhaps that's the golden era we'll explore in Light No Fire, and some time in thousands of years, those lovely rabbits, bears, wolves, and all those playable species in Light No Fire evolve into the Travellers. Some time in this era, the Travellers explore the stars and are soon destroyed, no more building and no more contact with each other allowed. Even no more planets with multiple biomes perhaps. It is a very safe bet that Light No Fire and No Man's Sky are directly connected, and hopefully we'll get to see that connection explored quite soon.

All of this is of course theorizing! It's possible that none of this is right at all, and please remember that despite potential likeliness of something happening, it could always simply not happen. It seems likely, but who's to say for sure. We'll have to wait and see when Light No Fire releases, and if there's any connection at all then check back into Pure Illogicality for all the information you need!