Overview
- The team postponed the planned June 10 release and set a new Early Access launch date of June 22 to buy time for fixes and player-driven testing.
- A public 'server slam' that coincided with the game's Summer Games Fest exposure drew tens of thousands of players and revealed connectivity failures that the publisher said affected over half of participants.
- Developers said the playtest identified specific server-capacity and network stability problems that they must fix to reliably support the game's large concurrent-player demands.
- The studio will run a sanity-check playtest on June 15 to verify server fixes and said it will publish a development and launch roadmap if that test succeeds.
- SAND is a PvPvE extraction shooter with high live‑player load by design and the team has repeatedly delayed release before, so the shift to Early Access is intended to let the community help refine balance and infrastructure while the studio manages reputational and commercial risk.