Ukrainian game studios Hologryph and TowerHaus announced the postponement of the release of their PVPVE extraction shooter SAND: Raiders of Sophie to June 22. The developers made the decision to postpone after large-scale Server Slam testing, which revealed serious problems with server stability under heavy load.
Ukrainian game studios Hologryph and TowerHaus announced the postponement of the release of their PVPVE extraction shooter SAND: Raiders of Sophie to June 22. The developers made the decision to postpone after large-scale Server Slam testing, which revealed serious problems with server stability under heavy load.
The developers announced this in their official statement on the project’s Steam page. They noted that open testing during the Summer Game Fest attracted tens of thousands of new players, which helped the team identify critical bugs before the official launch.
According to the developers, during testing, the load on regional servers exceeded 4,000 users simultaneously. This led to instability of the system and made it vulnerable to DDoS attacks. The team also recorded a «cascade effect», when a failure in one region automatically brought down neighboring servers.
«Server Slam helped us identify critical issues that were not visible during tests with a small number of players, which actually saved us from a disastrous launch. We can fix these issues, but we need a little more time,» the developers explained.
To make sure all bugs are fixed, the developers will conduct another stress test of the servers on June 15. If the tests are successful, the game will be released into early access on June 22, along with a detailed development plan based on community feedback.
The developers have previously decided on the pricing policy. The standard price of SAND: Raiders of Sophie in the world will be $25, and there will be a 21% discount on the release. For the Ukrainian market, the developers have prepared a regional price: the full price will be 400 UAH, and taking into account the release discount, the game can be purchased for 315 UAH.
