Sand: Raiders of Sophie hits 300K sales as update 2 fixes servers and improves trampler physics

Sand: Raiders of Sophie, the steampunk mech survival game from TinyBuild, has sold 300,000 copies just a couple of weeks into early access. TinyBuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik announced the milestone on X with characteristic understatement: "We getting a half hour of air conditioning tonight!"

The milestone comes alongside a rocky but ultimately successful rollout of the game's second update. The patch initially went live on July 2 but caused server connection issues — players were stuck on the "Connecting" screen — forcing the team to pull it almost immediately. Developers diagnosed the problem quickly and redeployed the update later that same week. The fixed version is now live and brings a substantial list of changes: BattlEye anti-cheat tuning to cut down on false-positive bans, occlusion improvements for a minor performance boost, significant character movement and parkour fixes, trampler collision polish (including a fix for parts turning invisible), corrected energy rod sell price (down from 450 to 50 on contract platforms), and expanded enemy AI — upiors now collide with players, move more naturally, and can operate cannons. A gas giant has also been added next to Sophie, which is exactly the kind of detail early access players notice.

The re-rollout, combined with the US Independence Day long weekend, pushed Sand to its highest Steam concurrent player count yet — just over 40,000. That's enough to land it between Farming Simulator 25 and Helldivers 2 on Steam's top 100 most-played chart. At $20 a pop (launch discount pricing), 300K copies represents a meaningful commercial result for an early access title that isn't free-to-play. TinyBuild, the publisher behind games like Tinykin and the Hello Neighbor series, has been leaning into smaller experimental titles in recent years, and Sand looks like one of their stronger early access bets.

With the server stability issues resolved and player counts climbing, the team will be looking to maintain momentum. The patch notes flag that some trampler compartment occlusion issues remain and will be addressed in upcoming updates, so the fix cadence is clearly continuing.