After a delay in 2025 and two delays this year (plus two more short delays this morning) mech fortress-builder Sand has finally launched

Picture a huge metal beast lumbering through the sand dunes. As it lifts its mechanical legs and places its heavy metal feet down, you probably wouldn’t be surprised if it stumbled, lurched, or even got stuck here and there for a bit.

That’s what’s been happening with Sand: Raiders of Sophie, a PvPvE extraction shooter where you build and pilot giant walking mechanical bases, stomp around in the desert on an alien planet, and battle both other players and their own walking bases. It’s taken quite a few missteps on the long, sandy path to launch.

The first delay was last year, when plans for an early access launch in April 2025 were scrapped. Following that, the game pivoted into being a full release upon launch, which was planned for March 2026—but in the final few days of March it became clear that wasn’t happening either, and the revised release was then targeted for June 10.

On June 9, the day before that new launch date, not only was the release moved again (to today, June 22), but the game shifted back to being an early access release again. Talk about walking in circles.

But here we are on June 22, and Sand: Raiders of Sophie is finally out in early access! That doesn’t mean there weren’t still a few more little stumbles at the starting line: as eager fans in the official Discord witnessed today, “a couple of wires got crossed that we need Valves help us uncross,” the development team said, which delayed today’s launch “an hour or two.”

Three hours after that announcement, a 10-minute countdown appeared—which then expired and was replaced by a second countdown, this one for 20 minutes. Gosh.

But then! Before the second countdown could fully run out, Sand finally launched on Steam. It’s really out this time! Fer honest!

How is it? Well, I bought it myself (it’s 21% off for the next two weeks) but I’ve been busy writing this story while it’s downloading. I’ll jump in shortly and let you know if Sand was worth the wait.