No Man’s Sky is at it again with another cryptic tease

Fans in the No Man’s Sky community are once again getting their hopes up, as the developer is teasing what is almost certainly the next big update. This is par for the course when it comes to the studio’s co-founder Sean Murray, but this time, it seems he’s going slightly off the rails.

Over the course of several posts on X, Murray has been hinting at something coming to No Man’s Sky through the ancient medium of emojis. In this case, Earth ones. The latest one embedded below shows Earth surrounded by a “circle” (I use the term loosely) of candles.

An earlier one showed many Earths forming the shape of some kind of cowboy? There were a few more before that, showing just three of the emojis in a row, suggesting his train of thought began in a less frantic vain.

So what does it all mean?

As ever, Murray is engaging in a bit of marketing genius, using a free social media platform to tease new content, and it absolutely works. Just take a look at the No Man’s Sky subreddit to see a few discussions on what the Earth emojis could possibly be referring to.

This thread suggests that the developer posting three in a row in a specific sequence suggests some sort of 3-2-1 countdown. Conversely, this thread opens with a plea to fans to temper expectations, adding that the onslaught of teases “may not be what we think it is.”

Could they be right? Well, another X post from Murray that went live just moments ago has given us a bit of an update on the studio’s next project, Light No Fire. In a similar style to NMS, Hello Games’ next offering is said to be “about adventure, building, survival and exploration together,” which will be set “on a fantasy planet the size of Earth,” according to Steam.

However, another Reddit user has noted that a particular screen opens up when you load into the game, which shows the words “No Man’s Sky Worlds: Part 1.” Potential spoilers ahead!

Several others have uploaded similar screenshots, which do indeed point to No Man’s Sky getting an overhaul, particularly for the game’s “water and cloud rendering.” The image also shows a boost to things like biomes, creatures, colors, and lighting, as well as the next Expedition.

In short: it’s almost certainly the next major patch for the game. However, it looks as though information and teases are still being drip-fed, so we’ll need to keep a close eye on social media and the official NMS website to see what it’ll result in.

Who knows, by the time this article goes live, an update may already be rolling out.