Sandustry Updates

The latest Sandustry update is Update #2 (v0.5.5), released August 19, 2026, focused on stability, quality-of-life and bug fixes. Sandustry entered Early Access on August 13, 2026 and has shipped three patches in its first week - a hotfix on August 14, Update #1 on August 16 and Update #2 on August 19. There is no dated official roadmap: the developer's stated plan is roughly a year in Early Access, with the feature request board at sandustry.nolt.io deciding what gets prioritized. This page tracks every update with its actual patch notes, and the roadmap promises made so far. It is maintained continuously - check back after each patch.

The Early Access updates so far

Three patches landed within a week of the August 13 Early Access release. The version numbers and dates below come straight from the official Steam announcements.

Update #2 - v0.5.5 (August 19, 2026). The headline is crash diagnostics: the game now writes detailed logs (on Windows under AppData, on Mac in ~/Library/Logs/sandustry, on Linux in ~/.config/sandustry), with an optional Crashpad crash dump the developer can ask affected players to enable. Tutorial videos were converted to animated images, which fixes a GPU crash when hovering previews and an OBS capture bug. Quality-of-life additions include Alt+Enter fullscreen toggling, the game remembering your last monitor, and a workaround for the macOS right-click freeze. The tutorial softlock caused by the radial menu was fixed, and the Aura Extractor guidance and swarm target indicators were improved.

Update #1 - v0.5.4 (August 16, 2026). Filter editing got much better: you can now reconfigure a placed filter through the filter overlay labels or "Edit last placed", instead of demolishing and rebuilding it, with clearer Allow/Block visuals (credited to streamer Cohh's demonstration). The Tier 5 softlock that persisted after anomaly investigation was fixed, with old saves repaired automatically. The notorious "indestructible red block" got a workaround - blocks within 256 tiles can now be deleted, and puzzle-door red blocks can be toggled again - though the root-cause fix touches core code and is not ready yet. Zoom in and zoom out became rebindable keys; the developer noted that zooming out further than the default is not currently possible due to rendering engine limits, but is being worked on.

Hotfix - v0.5.3 (August 14, 2026). A day-one stability pass: better logging and memory optimizations, tutorial videos now unload correctly to prevent decoder exhaustion, and cloud particle memory use dropped sharply. Factory tiers blocked by an objective now show why they are blocked, and special objectives are visually clearer. A new launch flag --sandustry-no-overlay-gpu-flags may prevent crashes at the cost of the Steam overlay (achievements still work).

The launch-day announcement itself did not state a version number, so treat v0.5.3 as the first confirmed version - the launch build's number was never published.

The demo era: eight hotfixes and a rewrite

Before Early Access, Sandustry had a free demo (early 2025) that attracted nearly 100,000 players with around 6 hours of average playtime, an overwhelmingly positive rating and over 50 community mods. The demo received eight hotfixes, from the February 2025 initial burst (simulation crash fixes, a rebindable Boost key, the S-key drop) through Hotfix 7 (falling through buildings after an 88% community vote, snow burning into steam, the first modloader appearing within two weeks of release) to Hotfix 8 (a new flower growth algorithm, Ctrl-held structure replacement, circuits' fuse threshold raised from 100 to 300).

The most consequential demo-era event was invisible to players: the developer completely rewrote the simulation engine and reworked the movement system, which is what made the destructible-pixel world of the Early Access version possible. A before-and-after comparison video is on the official YouTube channel.

The official roadmap

There is no dated roadmap - the developer has said a fixed roadmap is risky for a solo developer - but the official Early Access Q&A on Steam states the plan:

• Duration: roughly one year in Early Access, adjusting to player feedback
• Content: more buildings, resources, production chains, missions, biomes and technologies, with more refined procedural generation toward 1.0
• Price: may increase during Early Access as content grows (the launch discount runs to August 27, 2026)

In April 2025 the developer also teased six major content areas hoped for at Early Access launch: the World Engine (procedural generation and new biomes), Advanced Materials, Core Descent (new drilling and laser mining), the Quantum Collider, Deepmire (a hostile spreading substance blocking deep caves) and Creative Mode. Note this was a pre-launch preview - the launch announcements did not confirm which of the six made it into the EA build, so treat it as direction, not a checklist.

Feature requests have an official home: sandustry.nolt.io, the board Update #1 explicitly points to for voting on priorities.

What's next

No update has been announced beyond v0.5.5 as of August 25, 2026. The developer's stated work-in-progress, from the patch notes themselves: the crash investigation is ongoing ("several ideas to try in the coming days" per Update #1), the red block root-cause fix awaits being "confirmed safe" because it touches core code, the macOS right-click freeze has a workaround but not a final fix, and zoom-out support is in progress. On the modding side, modders are already shipping Workshop content without official API documentation, and testing mods requires the unstable "mods" branch.

When the next patch drops, this page gets updated - the version chain so far is v0.5.3, v0.5.4, v0.5.5.

FAQ

What is the latest version of Sandustry? v0.5.5 (Update #2), released August 19, 2026. The launch build's version number was never published; the first confirmed number is v0.5.3.

How long will Sandustry be in Early Access? The official plan is about a year, though the developer notes it will shift with player feedback.

Will the price go up after Early Access? Possibly - the official Q&A says the price may increase during Early Access as content is added. The 35% launch discount ends August 27, 2026.

Where do I report bugs or suggest features? The official board is sandustry.nolt.io; crash reports can include the game's log files, whose paths are listed in the Update #2 notes.

Why is my game crashing? Three patches in week one targeted crashes directly. Try the --sandustry-no-overlay-gpu-flags launch option from Hotfix v0.5.3, and check that you are on the latest version.