First of all – thank you for all the feedback over the past weeks, and especially last week! The blog post about merging Story and Sandbox has sparked a lot of attention and thoughtful comments: Marek’s Dev Diary – July 17, 2025
I appreciate how many of you took the time to think through the implications and share your reactions. Let me clarify a few important things, especially since the blog focused only on single-player, and may have left some questions open.
Story is Optional, Sandbox is Still King
The idea is not to force a story or campaign on players who just want to build, explore, or set their own goals.
SE2 is still a sandbox-first game. The story is there if you want it.
You can accept missions from NPCs or the Contract Block — or simply play free-form sandbox.
Some of these missions are part of the Colonization of Almagest – our meta-progression loop. This system unlocks new areas, resources, blocks, upgrades, and more.
It’s not mandatory, but it’s a key way to grow your capabilities and unlock more of the world.
Separate from colonization, some missions push the story forward – including cutscenes and narrative moments.
The story layer is completely optional. If you ignore both the colonization missions and the story, you’ll have a pure sandbox experience.
You decide how deep you want to go – colonization, story, both, or neither.
What About Multiplayer?
The last blog post focused on single-player, but here’s our current thinking on multiplayer:
- Co-op Story Mode: Your friends join your world. You play as Miro Sokol, and they’re your companions. Together, you experience your story.
- Vanilla Sandbox Servers: On public or dedicated servers, the story is turned off. Nobody is Miro Sokol. Everyone starts freely, just like classic SE sandbox.
This design is still a work in progress and subject to change. But your feedback is helping us shape it in the right direction.
Let me know what you think about any of this.
I read all your comments – it’s one of the best parts of my life.
Full blog post: https://blog.marekrosa.org/
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