SAND: Raiders of Sophie

I am leaving this review after putting 110 hours into the game, tracking it from the initial Open Beta playtests through its first two months of Early Access. The foundation here is beautiful—an atmospheric, post-apocalyptic steampunk concept that captures the exact same structural vibe as Sea of Thieves, but on land. I genuinely want this game to succeed. I’ve experienced glimpses of how incredible it can be, like pulling off a 37,000-crown solo extraction or calling a temporary truce with an enemy player in a ruined city just to have a friendly conversation. Unfortunately, those rewarding moments are extremely rare. I am primarily a PvE-focused player who can tolerate a balanced PvPvE environment if executed well. However, SAND has fundamentally drifted from its advertised design, turning the daily loop into a frustrating nightmare for solos and groups alike. The core structural flaws making the game unplayable include: • The Abandoned PvPvE Vision: The game was showcased as a balanced PvPvE experience centered on exploration and scavenging. Instead, the PvE ecosystem has collapsed into a hyper-aggressive pure PvP meatgrinder. Coordinated veteran squads routinely camp extraction zones or chase smaller crews completely off the map boundaries. Tellingly, the Steam store page itself has quietly shifted its branding and is now labeled strictly as a PvP game. The original vision has been abandoned. • Broken Matchmaking & The Ram Meta: There is currently zero gear-based or skill-based matchmaking. In Small Crew queues, our 3-person mid-tier crew is consistently thrown into lobbies against end-game squads wielding Rail Cannons and energy shields. When fights get close, the vehicle-ramming meta takes over. Attacking Tramplers use the ram as an extra layer of impenetrable armor that instantly shatters your critical compartments and disorients your screen, leaving mathematically zero chance for counterplay and deleting hours of real-life progress in seconds. • Automated Anti-Cheat False Flags: This was the ultimate breaking point. While anti-cheat is necessary, the automated system is so poorly optimized that it hands out false flags to innocent players. After my character suffered three consecutive deaths due strictly to environmental map hazards, the system flagged my account for "suspicious activity." Penalizing players for standard environmental defeats completely destroys the incentive to progress or grind. • Quantity vs. Quality Updates: The game has rushed out 7 rapid-fire updates in just two months, yet the foundational loops remain unpolished. For comparison, a game like Iron Nest has been out for the same duration under a tiny two-person team, and feels completely stable after only 3 updates. Pumping out patches means nothing if you aren't fixing the core economy. To address toxic end-game hoarding, the developers desperately need to implement monthly inventory wipes that flatten the gear gap while preserving hard-earned Tech Tree progression. There are normal skill issues, and then there are unbreakable hard ceilings. Until the developers fix the automated system targeting innocent players, protect casual groups, and restore the promised PvPvE balance, I cannot recommend spending your time or money here. As this game stands right now, you're better off playing Sea of Thieves or something of the like. Pros: • Amazing modular vehicle building, deep customization, and mechanical design. • Incredible post-apocalyptic, steampunk atmosphere. • High ceiling for organic, rewarding player interactions and high-value loot runs. Cons: • Broken automated anti-cheat that falsely flags legitimate accounts after environmental deaths. • Complete lack of gear-bracket matchmaking, leaving early/mid-tier builds helpless against end-game tech. • A broken, low-skill vehicle-ramming meta that functions as impenetrable armor and instantly destroys critical systems. • Severe gameplay drift from the showcased PvPvE design into a hostile, unmoderated pure PvP deathmatch. • Over-accelerated patch cycles that focus on rapid-fire hotfixes rather than fixing foundational stability.

Shameless moneygrab on a hype. abandonware. Update: well, at least devs respond with damage control )

DON'T buy this game its current state. idk if its a bug with the new GBMM or just the game being dead. but match after match you get thrown into empty lobbies with max 2 other tramplers most the time. For a PvP extraction game, that just completely kills the point. When you do find people, PvP has devolved into grenade spam rather than actual interesting fights. Everyone is stacking nades because they can two shot people, and you can dump an entire stack in under a second. Theres zero incentive to actually use guns or engage in proper PvP. The bigger issue is how slow the game is actually being fixed, its filled with bugs that have been a known issue for weeks or some even months and instead of fixing, every new update just makes things worse. 2 examples, hit registration issues, and constant server crashes in voyage. The dreadnought is also a good example, probably the only meaningful reason to play Storm Dive, since its the only place you can get experimental canons, it feels like it has a less than 5% chance to spawn atm. which is an insane design, the game already struggles with player number and you're forcing people to spend 40min in an empty stormdive for something that has an absurdly low spawn chance and is the only place you can get experimental canons. And yes, the game is early access, and im not expecting a fully polished game, but early access cant be an excuse for the core gameplay becoming this frustrating. Devs should address the problems that are driving people away, before adding more on top of them. Right now it feels more like paying to beta test a game that desperately needs a healthy playerbase to function, than paying for early access DON'T BUY IT RIGHT NOW. Wait until the devs actually fix the fundamental problems, improve matchmaking/population, and give people a reason to keep playing. I'll happily change this review if the game improves.

Станом на зараз - це шмат лайна.Марно втраченi грошi.

This game was fun at first, now all the people jump onto your trampler, explode your doors which you cant hear, then take your trampler all while your at the radio beacon trying to extract. The worst part of this game is the pvp. I'm glad i only spent 20 bucks on it. Just another game that will sit in my library unplayed. It did have potential but the pvp ruined it like it does with alot of games.

Solid concept, solid optimization. But amount of bugs is unreal, I encounter new bug(s) every day. Full list is too long, but among them: - Spiral stairs straight dont work properly, as are stairs on tramplers - Issues swapping equipment - Getting stuck on geometry forever - Issues with hitreg - Invisible zombies - Copies of locked doors in voyage locations - Arbitrary damage from explosives - and more Also game is cheater galore, one of core mechanics is disabled atm due to that, hopefully they will succeed in fixing. Yesterday cheater stole all my lootboxes after losing a fight

Hold off on buying this one for now. Something's off with matchmaking right now — whether it's a bug in the new GBMM system or the playerbase just dying out, I don't know. But session after session I'm getting dropped into near-empty lobbies, sometimes with only 1-2 other players total. I've spent literal hours just driving around the map trying to find anyone to fight, which for a PvP extraction game is a dealbreaker. The whole genre lives or dies on player density, and right now it's on life support. On the rare occasion you actually run into someone, fights aren't really fights anymore — it's grenade spam. Nades two-shot players and you can throw a full stack in under a second, so there's basically no reason to bother with guns. Gunfights have been replaced by who has more nades. Then there's the bug situation. Issues that have been reported for weeks, some for months, just sit there unfixed. Hit registration is still broken. Voyage still crashes constantly. Meanwhile every patch adds new problems on top of the old ones instead of clearing the backlog. Storm Dive / the Dreadnought sums up a lot of what's wrong. It's the only source of experimental cannons, so it's basically the only reason to run that mode — but the spawn rate feels under 5%. So you're sinking 40 minutes into a mode that's already struggling for players, for a reward that almost never shows up. Bad design compounding a population problem. I get it's early access and I'm not expecting a finished product. But "early access" shouldn't be a shield for the core gameplay loop being this broken and frustrating. Fix what's driving players away before shipping more content — right now this feels less like early access and more like unpaid beta testing for a game that needs a healthy playerbase just to be playable. Not recommended right now. I'll gladly revisit this review if matchmaking, the bugs, and the balance issues get sorted out.

Can be fun playing with friends, but pointless to try playing solo. Vehicle combat feels novel and interesting, but infantry combat kinda sucks. I probably won't play this again.