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SAND: Raiders of Sophie is played in first person on foot and from stations aboard a Trampler, and its controls have been reworked more than once since the Early Access launch. This page lists the bindings and settings the developers have confirmed in their patch notes and support pages, with the date each one arrived. Anything not listed here has not been confirmed and may differ from what a video or a forum post shows. For the loop these controls serve, see Gameplay; for a first run, see Getting Started.

Confirmed Bindings

The X key behaviour is the part most likely to catch a returning player out. Before September 1, 2026, dropping and stowing were handled differently and an item or weapon had to be unequipped before it could go into storage. Since that update a weapon or item held in the hands can be placed directly into a storage compartment.

Mouse and Bindings

The September 1, 2026 update opened the side buttons on a mouse to binding, so the ping, tools and other actions can sit under the thumb. The same update split mouse sensitivity into separate settings for each of six states, so a player can run a fast turn on foot and a slow, precise one behind a scope or a turret without compromising either.

Weapon-Handling Schemes

The game offers more than one control scheme for handling weapons, and the developers refer to two of them by name in the September 10, 2026 patch notes: Outlaw and Smuggler. The notes do not describe how the two differ, and this page does not guess. What they do record is that each scheme has had its own faults: under Outlaw, ammunition type could not be changed on a weapon that was not fully loaded, which was fixed on September 10, and under Smuggler the camera could break during turret or control-panel use after an orbital strike, also fixed that day. A remaining known issue is that autocannon recoil is not applied under Outlaw.

Controllers

The game has full controller support. The publisher's support pages add a caveat: Steam Input should be disabled for the game, or controller problems can follow, and the developers say they are working on a fix. Steam Deck and Linux players also need the Proton BattlEye Runtime installed from the library, or the anti-cheat will not start. Both notes sit with the hardware list on System Requirements.

Communication Settings

Proximity chat is the primary voice channel, the Flare Gun is the long-range signal, and the ping added in August 2026 covers the gap between them. Since September 1, 2026 each player's account identifier is displayed beside their name in the players list, which the developers added so that a report made outside the in-game tool can still be matched to the right account. Since September 10, 2026 every report returns a reference number. The wider fair-play rules and the sanctions behind them are on Servers and Online.

What Has Not Been Confirmed

As of September 21, 2026 the developers have not published a full keybinding list, a default sensitivity value for any state, or a description of the Outlaw and Smuggler schemes beyond their names. The known faults affecting controls, including the recoil issue above, are tracked on Known Issues.