Ukrainian extraction shooter SAND: Raiders of Sophie attracted over 200,000 players in just a week after its early access release. The project, created by Lviv studio Hologryph and Kyiv studio TowerHaus, showed significant online peak.
Ukrainian extraction shooter SAND: Raiders of Sophie attracted over 200,000 players in just a week after its early access release. The project, created by Lviv studio Hologryph and Kyiv studio TowerHaus, showed significant online peak.
The developers announced the game’s first successes and development plans on their official social media. According to them, the deserts of the planet Sophie welcomed a huge number of gamers almost from the start.
In particular, according to the analytical service SteamDB, on Sunday, June 28, the peak online SAND reached over 38,000 simultaneous players. The dynamics of audience engagement is high: on June 26, the authors reported the first 100,000 users, and over the next two days this figure doubled.
«Since SAND launched a week ago, we have welcomed over 200,000 of you to Sophie’s Deserts!» the development teams said .
Hologryph and TowerHaus also presented a roadmap for the project. The teams are currently focused on developing and implementing the following features:
new compartments for «tramplers» (huge walking machines that are a key element of the game);
new variants of NPC opponents;
post-game recaps and player statistics;
selection of opponents based on equipment level;
lobby browser.
By the end of 2026, the developers plan to add more weather and natural hazards, a menu creation system, color-coded storage, world bosses and elite NPCs. Also expected to be integrated ping system, new biomes, poisons and additional character models. In the longer term, the game will feature blueprint exchange systems, factions, reputation, quests, clans, as well as an in-game item encyclopedia.
SAND: Raiders of Sophie was released in Steam Early Access on June 22. The game currently has mixed reviews (55% positive out of over 4,000 reviews). According to the auto-score service VaporLense, players praise the project for its unique gameplay, successful three-person co-op, and extensive trampler customization options. At the same time, users criticize the game for technical problems: low server stability, frequent connection drops that lead to the loss of loot, and a large number of bugs.
