Version history
A running timeline of what's shipped and what's promised. Dated entries are from official Steam posts; the roadmap is the developers' rough plan and not a release schedule. For the authoritative, up-to-the-minute changelog, always follow Steam news.
~1 year of Early Access
The team estimates roughly a year in EA before 1.0, shaped by feedback. More content updates plus frequent feedback-driven patches are planned. Weapons, Trampler compartments, islands and crafting are still being built out.
Update #1 & roadmap
The first post-launch update shipped alongside the roadmap, past a 100,000-player milestone. Changelist: character-controller improvements, a lower chance of getting stuck on colliders, and improved shooting on and from moving tramplers — billed as the first of many controller passes.
Mission Update — Voyage crash warning
Devs reported holding the line on DDoS attacks but flagged a Voyage memory crash: matchmaking wasn't winding old servers down, so they ran until they crashed, leaving players stuck reconnecting to dead servers. Players were told to avoid Voyage until a substantial patch shipped.
Day-1 server hotfix
A server-side hotfix addressed several of the most-reported launch issues — no client update required. The devs flagged that more fixes were actively being worked on for a follow-up update.
Early Access launch (v0.1)
SAND: Raiders of Sophie went live on Steam in Early Access with a 21% launch discount across all regions. Shipped with two modes — Voyage (persistent, no timer) and Storm Dive (closing sandstorm, higher-tier loot).
Launch delayed 12 days
A pre-launch "Server Slam" stress test exposed backend failures past roughly 4,000 players per region. The team pushed the original June 10 date back rather than ship with known server-collapse issues.
Community-driven development
SAND leaned on its community from announcement in 2023, running closed and open playtests through Steam Next Fest (which peaked around 12.5k concurrent players) to prepare for the Early Access launch.
◆ Roadmap items are estimates the developers said are shaped by community feedback — weapons, Trampler compartments, islands and crafting are still listed as in-development. Treat all future dates as provisional.