Hello Games' Sean Murray lights the internet on fire with a single emoji that could mean more No Man's Sky, Light No Fire news, or nothing at all

Well, it was a nice, quiet Friday afternoon until Hello Games managing director Sean Murray decided to drop an Earth-shaped bomb onto the internet.

Say what you want about Murray, but he knows how to get people talking. That fact is provable due to the existence of a single tweet sent out today containing a solitary emoji. Fan reactions to Murray's tweet of an Earth emoji are bordering on the hysterical as fans clamor to decipher its meaning. Is it a clue that we're getting another No Man's Sky update? After all, there are planets in that game - a whole bunch of them, in fact - and the Earth is also a planet. 

It's just as likely that Murray is teasing news related to Hello Games' upcoming open-world survival RPG Light No Fire. We haven't seen a whole lot of that yet, and it still doesn't have a release date. And chiefly, a big hunk of its marketing so far has been its ambition to create a single planet at the scale of our own real-life Earth, which would explain the emoji.

Whatever it is, Hello Games fans have come unglued.

"If this is another NMS update I will be very excited, if this is Light no Fire news, I may explode," reads one tweet in reaction.

Conversely, another fan wrote, "If this is another NMS update ima explode if it's light no fire i won't be as excited but im still interested."

"Light No Fire is supposed to be Earth sized," another fan rightly pointed out. "Is this regular NMS hijinx or something else."

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And then there are a slew of unhinged reactions portrayed in GIF form, per tradition.

ANOTHER ONE!!! https://t.co/Klw2lhSLLR pic.twitter.com/WeceBprmUFJuly 12, 2024

A WILD EMOJI! LIGHT THE BEACONS! https://t.co/QyREysTD4z pic.twitter.com/A63u04MjXJJuly 12, 2024

The madman is doing it again https://t.co/Jd1jHEmtHc pic.twitter.com/5gDVuCubwHJuly 12, 2024

OUI???????????? https://t.co/wL1L9vYudZ pic.twitter.com/9QV4JknOpCJuly 12, 2024

You get the picture.

In fairness, the theory that we're