Developers

SAND: Raiders of Sophie is a joint production by two Ukrainian game development studios, Hologryph and TowerHaus, under the publishing umbrella of tinyBuild.

Hologryph

Hologryph is a video game development studio headquartered in Lviv, Ukraine. It is a subsidiary of tinyBuild. The studio previously developed Secret Neighbour, a multiplayer spin-off of the Hello Neighbor series. Hologryph leads development on SAND: Raiders of Sophie alongside co-developer TowerHaus.

The studio's head, who signs community posts as Maksym, has fronted several of the more difficult announcements during Early Access, including the explanation for why the return of Trampler capture slipped through late July 2026 while the team worked on false-positive bans.

TowerHaus

TowerHaus is a Ukrainian game development studio co-developing SAND: Raiders of Sophie with Hologryph. Both studios share the same cultural background reflected in the game's setting, with the Galician and Austro-Hungarian themes drawing on the heritage of Western Ukraine.

tinyBuild

tinyBuild is the publisher for SAND: Raiders of Sophie. tinyBuild is an international video game publisher and developer that has published numerous titles across PC and consoles. Hologryph operates as a studio within the tinyBuild family of studios. See Release and Platforms for the game's launch details. The studios released SAND: Raiders of Sophie into Steam Early Access on June 22, 2026 and have continued active, community-driven support since launch, shipping a hotfix and a first content update and publishing an Early Access roadmap within the opening week, and continuing with further updates in the weeks after launch.

Studio Details

Community Communication

The studios run an unusually visible development process. They publish numbered update posts with full changelists and known-issue lists, ran a community question-and-answer session in July 2026 covering roadmap items and ruled-out features, and posted a detailed breakdown of a ban wave including how to appeal it. Earlier in development they ran a series of dev diaries setting out the world's backstory, much of which is summarised on Setting: Planet Sophie.

They also host community events. The first all-star tournament, the SAND: Scorched Shell Showdown, ran on July 18, 2026 with 20 teams competing for a $10,000 prize pool and a place in the game itself. Feedback is gathered through the game's community server, the store forums, surveys and social channels, and the team has said it will keep shipping feedback-driven updates between larger content drops.