Excitement forThe Elder Scrolls 6fading is no surprise when it’s been 14 years since the last entry, and seven years since the teaser trailer we got at the now-dead E3. Don’t get me wrong, Iamstill excited, but my fantasy-craving mind has been given so much more sinceSkyrim, even with something as colossal asThe Witcher 3, and will continue to get more before we return to Tamriel. One game in particular has my attention nowadays, the way The Elder Scrolls 6 once did.
Light No Fireis the upcoming planet-sized fantasy game fromNo Man’s SkydeveloperHello Games. It’s a multiplayer survival game, rather than a single-player narrative RPG, but I now have a few reasons to be looking at Hello Games overBethesdawhen it comes to desiring a new fantasy adventure to get wrapped up in.
There’s still no release window for Light No Fire, but with seven years of development already - the same amount of time since TES6’s reveal - it’s safe to say it’ll bebeforeThe Elder Scrolls 6 eventually arrives.
A Brand New Fantasy To Explore
The simplest reason I’m excited for Light No Fire is that it will provide a brand new fantasy world to explore, with unknown mysteries to uncover. Hello Games’ once-maligned and now beloved No Man’s Sky is oceans-deep with lore, and in a single trailer, Light No Fire shows us races of anthropomorphic animals, tamed creatures from mounts to dragons, factions that inhabit existing structures, and ancient, alien-like statues.
While I cannot wait to delve into Tamriel again, perhaps in a new era entirely, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more eager to explore something completely new, when I know the lore for it will be incredibly rich and ever-expanding.
A World Built The Way Players Want It
After Starfield, it’s only more evident that not everyone will be pleased with The Elder Scrolls 6, and that’s okay. It’s impossible to create something unanimously praised, and I still enjoyedStarfieldand have no doubt I’ll enjoy Skyrim’s sequel.
The advantage Light No Fire has, though it will still fail to please everyone by nature of its genre, is that it’s a world that the players can shape. Groups of people already gather to create within No Man’s Sky, so when Light No Fire gives us an Earth-sized planet, you can be sure we’ll begin to see communities of players develop settlements and cities, likely with structure and trade at the heart of it. This will only grow with time, so if you want to see something from this game, it will likely exist before long, or you could go out to create what you want yourself.
Scale, Beauty, And Dragon Riding
I know we’ll get a beautiful, colossal world to explore from The Elder Scrolls 6 as well, but Light No Fire offering a beautiful, Earth-sized world to explore is more inviting. I can’t wait to wander forests and valleys, scale mountains and canyons, sail across oceans, and discover continents not yet found.
Plus, you may ride dragons. I mean, come on. This was something wealmostgot in Skyrim with the Dragonborn DLC, but it ended up disappointing. Let me live out my How To Train Your Dragon dreams!
Strong Long-term Support Is Assured
Skyrim has had long-term support, with modding communities still active now, but therein lies the issue - the same issue that saw the longevity of Fallout 4 and Starfield drop off much quicker. Bethesda often relies on modding communities to keep their games active, which is a boon when that game has a passionate and loyal core group of players that return year on year, but it can’t always be the answer, especially with its later games that failed to capture the same kind of fascination.
In comparison, No Man’s Sky has had free, extensive, active support from its development team for almost a decade, and it continues to receive updates and new content every few months. To this end, we can be sure that Light No Fire will continue to carry that approach - only more evident by Sean Murray’s statement at the 2023 Game Awards, “If people like it, this is a game I’d like to still be updating ten years from now.”
We have every reason to believe that Hello Games is capable of supporting a game effectively for such a long period of time, and I have no doubt that Light No Fire will retain a significant portion of the fantasy genre of video games for at least a decade after its launch. And that has me more excited for this game than my next adventure in Tamriel.
