No Man’s Sky is set to receive a groundbreaking mobile adaptation from Light No Fire.
A decade after its initial launch, No Man’s Sky is set to explore a new realm: mobile devices. Hello Games is bringing its expansive open-world sci-fi adventure to iPhone and iPad this October, with preorders available now. This mobile version will incorporate all updates from the past ten years and will be compatible with devices starting from the iPhone 11. This impressive feat is largely attributed to Light No Fire, the upcoming follow-up to No Man’s Sky currently in development at Hello Games.
Before the announcement, a virtual roundtable featured Hello Games founder Sean Murray, who shared insights about the project. Development on the mobile port kicked off around three years ago, coinciding with the release of No Man’s Sky’s Mac version in 2023. While Murray acknowledged that a “sensible game developer” might think the game wouldn’t perform well on phones, the Hello Games team was eager to tackle this “impossible” challenge.
The results are indeed remarkable. The mobile edition includes every update released to date, including the recent Cosmos DLC from September. However, it will not feature settlements or multiplayer at launch—similar to its initial release on Nintendo Switch—but Murray hinted that these features could be added later based on player feedback. The mobile version boasts full touch controls, redesigned menus, controller compatibility, and mouse and keyboard support for iPad.
What’s even more surprising is the range of devices it supports. According to Murray, No Man’s Sky can be played on any iPhone starting from the 11 and on iPad Air models from the third generation onward. The entire game, with all its content, is under 5 GB in size.
How did they achieve this? Murray attributes it to years of optimization to ensure the game runs smoothly on PlayStation 4, its original platform. While the team’s multiplatform approach played a role, some of the necessary optimizations for mobile stemmed from the development of Light No Fire.
“To bring it to iPhone and iPad, we’ve had to think critically about performance and memory usage, which has inadvertently improved the experience on other platforms,” Murray explained. “Some of those enhancements have come from Light No Fire. We’ve developed more efficient technologies there that we can apply across the board since it’s all built on a shared engine.”
Light No Fire, announced at the 2023 Game Awards, is a mysterious multiplayer survival game that utilizes procedural generation. Although details have been scarce since its teaser, it has quickly become one of the most wishlisted games on Steam. When discussing the team’s division between Light No Fire and No Man’s Sky, Murray noted that the workload fluctuates, as many developments benefit both projects.
“Sometimes while working on Light No Fire, we come up with ideas that would be great for No Man’s Sky,” he said. “For instance, the technology we developed for Light No Fire allowed us to create ships that players can pilot in No Man’s Sky. This cross-pollination of ideas and technology benefits both games, with Light No Fire testing and refining new tech.”
No Man’s Sky will be available on iPhone and iPad starting October 28, priced at $19.99, with a free trial option for players. Light No Fire currently does not have a release date.
