Marek’s Dev Diary: September 18, 2025

News

18/09/2025

Colonization & Map Design

I talked about the colonization meta loop in my previous blog posts, but here is a quick summary:

The heart of Space Engineers 2’s gameplay is the colonization of the Almagest System. The system is divided into regions, each with its own resources, challenges, and opportunities. By completing missions and building infrastructure, you raise your colonization progress – a measure of humanity’s foothold in this new star system.

Every project matters: a power station, a mining outpost, even defending against threats. Everything contributes to colonization. We call this “The New Space Race” – a clear and visible progression path, while still keeping the sandbox freedom that defines Space Engineers.

The story layer is optional. If you want, you can take missions from NPCs (planned for VS4) or the Contract Block and push the narrative forward. Or you can ignore it all and just play pure sandbox. Colonization simply provides a purpose and a sense of progress for those who want it.

Ok, we have the design – so what now?

Now comes the tedious, patient, meticulous programming work needed to make all of this real.

We’re implementing the progression system and the sector map:

Making GPS markers searchable and intuitive:

And building the foundation for planet placement and discoveries.

In the VS2 update you will see the foundations of colonization and mission systems. Once this layer is complete, we’ll make it pretty and have the structure in place to grow and expand colonization into the core experience of Space Engineers 2.

I can’t wait to test this in a real game loop!