Welp! Just yesterday, Sand: Raiders of Sophie devs Hologryph and TowerHaus shared the release times of the desert-set extraction shooter where you have your own steampunk mobile fortress, which was set for release tomorrow, June 10th. Today, however? That release date has gone out the window.

As detailed in a new Steam blog post, this is due to the recently held server slam held over the weekend which apparently did not go over all that well. “It’s been a crazy few days, with Sand featuring at Summer Games Fest and the Server Slam exceeding our expectations on the number of players,” the post explains. “The community has also been extremely vocal and critical… It’s clear we need to more closely involve the community in our development, and so we’ve decided to release into Early Access to work towards the best possible version of Sand: Raiders of Sophie.”

Previously the game was intended for a full release as opposed to early access, for some context. With that change of release format comes a new release date too, at least: June 22nd, just under two weeks away, so that wait isn’t all that much longer. The big issue the devs plan to focus on is to improve the game’s server capacity, as how it currently is won’t be strong enough for launch. Another server slam is now planned for June 15th for further testing and to “make sure things are smooth.”

Once the game does launch, assuming that second test goes well, a roadmap is planned to be shared as well. Certainly a bit of a mess considering their big appearance at Geoff Fest, one of the biggest shows of the year, but I suppose that’s video games in 2026!