Hello, Engineers!
On October 23, 2013, Space Engineers launched into Steam Early Access. Thirteen years later, we are still building, still experimenting, and still discovering what happens when we put engineering tools into your hands.
This anniversary belongs to everyone who has been part of that journey. The veteran who remembers their first flight with the Red Ship. The builder sharing their first blueprint. The modder solved a problem nobody had thought to tackle. The friend who says, “You have to try this game,” and then spends the evening helping a new Engineer get off the ground. To all Keen Software House team members, fellow former and current colleagues.
Thank you for thirteen years of creativity, support, patience, and wonderfully ambitious ideas. We could not have done this without you.
It Started with a Sandbox
Before it was called Space Engineers, the project’s working title was simply “Sandbox.” Development began in April 2013, and our first release focused on the essentials: physics, creative building, and the freedom to experiment. We wanted to get those tools into players’ hands and develop the game with real feedback rather than assumptions about how people would use it.
Then the possibilities kept growing. Multiplayer, survival mode, programmable blocks, and increasingly complex machinery gave Engineers more problems to solve. Planets arrived in 2015, taking us from asteroid construction sites to planetary bases, atmospheric flight, and the challenge of escaping gravity. Space Engineers left Early Access in 2019, but development continued. Xbox Engineers joined us in 2020, followed by PlayStation Engineers in 2023. Every new platform brought more people, perspectives, and creations into the community.
Some milestones were about the game. Others were about the people around it. Our tenth-anniversary gathering brought fans and developers together in person, accompanied by a live orchestral performance of Space Engineers music. It was a chance to meet the people behind familiar usernames and celebrate something we had spent a decade building together.
The game has changed enormously since those first builds. What has stayed with us is the same question: what could you create with the right tools and enough freedom?
You keep giving us new answers.
An Anniversary Gift
To celebrate thirteen years of Space Engineers, we are bringing a familiar face into a new chapter.
Everyone who owns Space Engineers will receive the “Ancient Engineer” character skin in Space Engineers 2 as our anniversary gift.
Inspired by the familiar appearance of the Space Engineers 1 Engineer, the Ancient Engineer suit lets you carry a little of that history into Space Engineers 2. It is our way of thanking the players who helped us reach this anniversary, whether you have been engineering with us since 2013 or joined the community more recently.
A new frontier. A familiar suit. The same need to create.
For Engineers ready to explore both games, the Space Engineers 1 and Space Engineers 2 Steam bundle brings the original sandbox and its evolving sequel together. Enjoy the depth and possibilities of Space Engineers, and help shape the next chapter through Space Engineers 2’s Early Access journey!
Explore the Space Engineers 1 & Space Engineers 2 Steam Bundle!
You Are Part of the Team
Space Engineers has never been something we build alone and simply hand over to players.
You build the ships, write the scripts, run the servers, organize the events, make the tutorials, report the bugs, and welcome the next generation of Engineers. Your feedback helps us see where the game needs to improve. Your creations show us possibilities we might never have discovered ourselves.
You are part of our team, and a huge part of our secret sauce.
That is especially true of our modding and community scene. Over the years, players have transformed Space Engineers in wildly different directions – from large-scale communities like Sigma Draconis, to Formula Space Engineers racing, advanced mech builders, RTS experiences, railway systems, custom scenarios, automation, and much more. Some of these ideas go far beyond anything we originally imagined for the game, and that is exactly why supporting modders, creators, and community projects remains so important to us.
The scale of what you have built is extraordinary. Space Engineers has one of the largest Workshop communities on Steam, with hundreds of thousands of creations spanning ships, stations, worlds, mods, and more. Behind that enormous collection are individual people sharing their time, knowledge, and imagination with everyone else.
Our Community Hub celebrates those people through Creator Spotlights, community features, and regular collections of inspiring creations. It is a place to discover your next favorite build, meet the person behind a mod, or find an entirely different way to play.
Explore the Space Engineers Community Hub
Find Your Fellow Engineers
Every one of these communities begins with people sharing an interest, an idea, or a problem they want to solve.
Our official Discord is a place to meet fellow Engineers and become part of that wider community. Bring your latest creation, find people to build with, join the conversation, or share the engineering problem that has been keeping you busy.
You do not need a thousand hours of playtime or a Workshop full of blueprints to belong here. Your first small ship is part of this story too.
Join the official Space Engineers Discord
…And We Keep Going
Thirteen years is a milestone, not a finish line.
For Space Engineers, Warfare 3 is bringing new reasons to rethink how you design, defend, and fight with your creations. Guided missiles and heavy torpedoes, countermeasure flares, EMP weaponry, and Jump Detection will expand the decisions that shape a battle. These gameplay additions are coming in the free update, alongside the optional Warfare 3 Pack.
Our reveals are already underway, with weekly previews showing more of what is coming. Follow the transmissions, examine the new possibilities, and start thinking about what your next combat ship will need.
Explore the Warfare 3 reveals | Wishlist the Warfare 3 Pack
Meanwhile, just a few days ago we released Space Engineers 2: Hostile Encounters, bringing combat NPCs to the game for the first time, including the Renegades and the heavier Boatmen. These enemies bring new challenges to a world where players can engineer battlefield solutions, damage its structures, and destroy the cover around them. NPCs can navigate player-built spaces, take cover, respond to threats, and fight both Engineers and their creations.
Alongside character-combat improvements and new blocks such as the Interior Turret, Hostile Encounters is another major step forward for Space Engineers 2’s engineering sandbox. It remains an evolving Early Access Alpha, and your feedback continues to help shape what comes next.
Explore Space Engineers 2 on Steam
We are continuing to develop Space Engineers while building the future of Space Engineers 2. The next chapter does not erase the first. It grows from everything we have learned, built, and experienced together.
Thank you to everyone who has worked on these games, everyone who has supported them, and everyone who has made this community their home.
Happy 13th anniversary, Engineers!
What was the first thing you built in Space Engineers, and what are you building today?
Holiday Cheer Event
The holidays are coming, and this year we want to bring some of your creations directly into Space Engineers and Space Engineers 2.
Send us your best winter and Christmas-themed screenshots from either game at community@keenswh.com – snowy bases, festive ships, decorated stations, or anything else that captures the holiday spirit.
We’ll select our favorites and feature them in a special video on our YouTube channel during the holiday season, helping spread a little Christmas cheer across both games.
So get building, decorating, and screenshotting – we can’t wait to see what you create.
Newly added
- Added the Ancient Engineer character skin for players who own Space Engineers on Steam. Select it in the Medical Room.
Stability
- Fixed several crashes involving NPC movement and patrols when their targets or nearby objects were removed.
- Fixed an additional crash when a grid supporting a character was removed, including when encounters despawned.
- Fixed a freeze that could occur while repairing damaged blocks.
- Fixed a crash caused by incorrect memory allocation when rendering vegetation.
- Fixed additional crashes when closing the game.
- Fixed a crash when leaving a world while encounters were still loading.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when publishing blueprints to the Workshop.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when grouping blocks in the Terminal.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when opening cockpit settings in the Terminal.
- Fixed a potential crash during texture streaming.
- Improved stability when rendering the user interface.
Functional
- Fixed the Rocket Launch Site contract failing after launch instead of completing and unlocking the O2/H2 Generator.
- Fixed Ore Detector markers not appearing after placement or loading a world until “Broadcast with antenna” was toggled.
- Fixed piston heads becoming displaced during high-speed flight and when extending or retracting in flight.
- Fixed some modded blocks failing to load because of non-critical validation warnings.
Render
- Fixed pink rendering when running the game through Wine/Proton on Linux.
Tools: VRAGE3 Mod Editor and Mod HUB
- Fixed the Mod Editor freezing when opening affected mods after an update, and improved recovery from failed content loading without restarting the editor.
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