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August 28, 2025

Marek’s Dev Diary: August 28, 2025

What is this

Every Thursday, I will share a dev diary about what we’ve been working on over the past few weeks. I’ll focus on the interesting challenges and solutions that I encountered. I won’t be able to cover everything, but I’ll share what caught my interest.

Why am I doing it

I want to bring our community along on this journey, and I simply love writing about things I’m passionate about! This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly. Any plans I mention aren’t set in stone and everything is subject to change. Also, if you don’t like spoilers, then don’t read this.

Space Engineers 1

We’re excited to announce the upcoming Apex Survival Update for Space Engineers, arriving this September!

Building on the solid PVE foundation laid by previous updates like Contact and Fieldwork, Apex Survival update introduces food, farming, environmental hazards, new Space Encounters, and much more – giving survival mode a whole new edge. 

Stay tuned for more details as we get closer to the release!

Also Space Engineers Free Steam weekend and Great Skin Hunt start today!

Space Engineers 2

I heard you want more of those amazing Verdure screenshots – here you go: 

Welder character animations and welding particles are being refined right now to be ready for VS2. It’s a small detail on its own, but when you see the sparks, the motion, and the way the character interacts with the block under construction, it adds so much to the feeling of actually building. These incremental steps keep pushing the game closer to the survival experience we want you to have.

We are also working on ragdoll physics. Right now it’s still a work in progress, but already it makes characters feel more dynamic and reactive. Seeing a body tumble, react to collisions, or get pushed around by the environment brings a new layer of believability.

Another water development milestone: here you can see our testing “Yellow Submarine.”
Water is all around it – and there is no water inside! At first glance it might seem obvious, even a small thing, but in reality this is a huge milestone for the system. 

Share your thoughts in the comments below – I read them all, and they’re one of my favorite parts of making SE2.

Comments

  • August 28, 2025
    Interior Light

    Hello! I love to see this kind of content! Though I have a question, How will the future SE1 update affect Official Keen servers? will they be updated? or will the settings be turned off?

    Thank you, -Interior Light.
    “Shining brightly in a world of darkness”

  • August 28, 2025
    Officer duh

    What’s the planned release timeframe? I know the plan is by end-of-year but is there any more specific estimates?

  • The welder looks sick, same with the drill tool currently in the mod sdk. Can’t wait for VS2

  • This looks great! Every week the graphics look more and more impressive. I cannot wait for the Console release (hopefully before the full release, I cannot wait 2 years.)

  • Take my money and shut up! 🤣🤣🤣 Dude that submarine is badass! Can’t wait to create water bases where we can have water drain like aqualocks… Even make cannel locks the amount of engineering we’ll be able to do will keep us busy for years!! 🔥🔥🔥 Keep up the good work!

  • I hope there will be interesting things underwater so making submarines is worth it. I feel like the worst thing about SE1 is the lack of gameplay and things to do, so I hope it will be much improved in SE2 because the tech is amazing but you have to make a real game with this potential.

  • The welder looks more like a taser than a tool for construction, honestly.

    I am looking forward to the water mechanics, but do you have any plans for major improvements for wheel-based vehicles? The rover physics of SE1 is very odd, and it would be a shame to take it over to SE2.

  • I am completely blown away by the progress made on space engineers 2. VS3 is a dream for me and that submarine is oh so cool! Thank you for your passion and talent!

  • This progress seems great and the screenshots look amazing!
    Just one question: Will we be getting new decorational blocks in the forseeable future?

  • I have two ideas for improvement though:
    1. Grass should be perpendicular to gravity, not to the surface. Right now it looks a bit off that grass just grows to the side.
    2. The water splash particles should not just fade out, but grow a little bit at the same time. Also the fade effect should use a noise map, so not everything fades out at the same speed but dissolves in like a noisy patch pattern.

  • Is it true that mechanical blocks (e.g., rotors, pistons, hinges) are not being added until after VS3? This seems like it would be a major omission if this is the case.

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Biography

I have always been driven by the need to create — games, AI agents, ideas. That’s why I started Keen Software House: to create games that only existed in my head. After Space Engineers took off, I founded GoodAI to develop AGI, to help humanity and understand the universe.

These days I’m focused on Space Engineers 2, the VRAGE3 engine, AI People, and autonomous agents in general — powering NPCs in our games, or swarms of autonomous and intelligent drones.

It’s all part of my long-term plan: to make civilization stronger, greater, and more resilient.

Our home base is a 17th-century Oranžérie in Prague — but we’re a remote-first, global team of 100+ programmers, artists, designers, and engineers.

I am proudly European , and in the last few years, I’ve come to love South Africa and its people.

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