Sean Murray says the Earth-sized planet in Light No Fire will have 'real oceans' that players will need 'large boats and crews' to cross

Every few months the No Man's Sky community gets a treat: a new update is announced that introduces new features and systems for the sci-fi sandbox. Something else that happens every few months: the Light No Fire community gets its hopes up that the announcement will actually be about Hello Games' upcoming Earth-sized fantasy sandbox.

Today both communities got their wish. (Note: I'm pretty sure the No Man's Sky community and the Light No Fire community are the same community.) Yes, a big new No Man's Sky update has arrived, called Voyagers, but Sean Murray also gave all those eager Light No Fire fanatics a tidbit of information, too.

The No Man's Sky Voyagers update means players can now build custom starships for the first time. These ships are big enough for several crew members and allow players to get up and walk around inside their ships. Essentially, they're flying bases that can be edited and customized even while you're traveling between planets, which Murray says wasn't easy for the team at Hello Games to bring to life.

"The technical challenges they have had to overcome to make any of this possible have been immense. Almost every part of the game has had to be reworked to accommodate these relative spaces," Murray said in an email sent to PC Gamer.

The new ship building system won't just be used in No Man's Sky, either.

"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," Murray said. "We love that we get to share this technology with players early."

I've been thinking a lot about mountain-sized mountains when it comes to the 1:1 scale of Light No Fire's planet, but I hadn't given oceans much thought until now. The idea of taking a voyage across an ocean the size of an actual ocean is pretty exciting, especially in a custom-built boat full of pals. I'm definitely curious to see the fantasy version of Voyagers' sci-fi ship-building tech whenever Light No Fire comes out.

This isn't the first time Murray has talked about tech being shared between the two games. "The team is extremely busy on Light No Fire," Murray said back in January when unveiling a new terrain system for No Man's Sky. "Each time we push our engine to new places though we have this urge to share it with the community, with No Man’s Sky."

You can see the mention of Light Not Fire at about 1:51 in the Voyagers update video below.