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 This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly.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 2
VS2.3: Drive, Automate & Detonate
It is my pleasure to reveal the name of our next major update for Space Engineers 2 – VS2.3: Drive, Automate & Detonate!
We are now moving toward the feature freeze phase of VS2.3 development. This means we stop adding new features to the update and focus on making everything that is already included stable, polished, and ready for release. From this point, the team’s work shifted more toward testing, bug fixing, balancing, improving usability, and making sure the update feels good in real gameplay.
You can expect VS2.3 to be released in late June or early July. Watch this space – I will share more details about the timeline and all the features included in this major update as we get closer to launch!
Roadmap
Meanwhile, we also have teams working on VS3 and VS4 in parallel. This has always been the plan: different parts of Space Engineers 2 need different specialists, and not every feature depends on the same team. So while VS2.3 is moving toward release, other teams are already pushing ahead on the next big milestones.
We now have enough information to make an educated guess about which update will come first. At this moment, it looks like VS4: Coop Multiplayer & NPCs will arrive before VS3. Our current target for VS4 is November/December 2026.
VS4 is an important milestone because it brings the first cooperative multiplayer experience to Space Engineers 2. The current plan is to start with 4-player co-op, with player hosting only for VS4, not full large-scale multiplayer or dedicated servers yet. Dedicated servers will come later. This first step is about making the core experience work properly when multiple players share the same world, contracts, progression, rewards, GPS markers, respawning, disconnecting, and all the small but important things that suddenly become much more complicated when you are no longer alone.
The other big part of VS4 is NPCs. This will be the first implementation of NPCs in Space Engineers 2 – at this stage, the focus is on making NPCs move in a complete sandbox environment, fight, and feel good in gameplay. They may be simple hostile characters for now, without deeper faction-specific story context. We do not want to invent placeholder lore that we may later replace when the proper factions and background are ready. VS4 is about building the foundation for NPCs first.
We are still working on VS3: Water and we are moving it after VS4. This allows the main gameplay team to focus on NPCs and co-op multiplayer, while the Water and Render teams continue working on water in parallel. Water is still very important to us, but it is also technically demanding, and I would rather give it the time it needs than force it into the wrong release window.
This does not mean that water features development is slow. Quite the opposite! In just the last three months, the Water Team has managed to solve tons of water related tasks!
Tomas Drinovsky, Water Team – From Exploration to Production: “Up until the VS2 release, water development was about probing what is and isn’t possible within the full complexity of Space Engineers 2. In 2026, our focus shifts to bringing that technology to a production-ready state.
Improved Visuals
The water visuals are being improved on several fronts:
- We ensure players no longer see artifacts such as stray bubbles or a jagged water line, with new systems that remove unwanted surface visuals and precisely detect the water line.
- The underwater environment now uses volumetric rendering, adding god ray effects and natural lighting from projector lights.
Scaling from Oceans to Leaks
The water must work across every scale – from large-scale water bodies down to a small leak in a submarine built from 25 cm detailing blocks. To support this, we added the ability to simulate water leaking through holes as small as 25 cm.
Preparing for Multiplayer
VS4 will introduce multiplayer, so the water architecture is being designed with multiplayer support in mind from the ground up.
Built for Scalability
We are making the solution scalable. One key step is decoupling the water simulation from the gameplay simulation frame, allowing water to be simulated independently. Allowing to keep 60FPS simulation even under water caused pressure.
Together, these efforts are bringing the water technology up to the standard of the full sandbox experience players expect from SE2.”
Fractured Material
We will be upgrading the temporary placeholder fractured materials – bringing much richer visuals to all the damaged blocks. For me, the main benefit of this change is that it’s easier to read the geometry from a distance, silhouettes and shapes make more sense, they are not merged in one big grey visual blob.
Mirko Bartolini, Art Team: “Updated version of the fractured material. It has been reworked to better reveal the underlying structure and to distribute loose elements in a more logical way, avoiding a debris-like look. Color and electrical components have also been added.”
Oxygen Farm
Andrea Cabras, Art Team: The Oxygen Farm is a functional block that will produce oxygen from sunlight. It is based on Mike Hamlett’s concept and it consists of a capsule with a rotating hydroponic tower on the inside, supported by a frame.
“The idea was to make it look good both vertically and horizontally to allow players more freedom, as we imagine this will be also used as a decorative block. For the plant type, we did research on what kind of plant would make sense for this use case but also considering the aesthetic aspect and the technical limitations, we decided to go for a broad leaf plant: this allowed us to cover a large surface with less polygons usage.”
Safe Zone
Raissa Theodosia, Art Team: “Safe Zone is a defensive block designed to generate a protective barrier that shields players from incoming attacks. Drawing inspiration from the original Space Engineers 1 design, I reinterpreted it with a more mechanical and industrial aesthetic, incorporating rotating elements to reinforce the illusion of the barrier actively being generated. Fitting all details within the polygon budget was definitely a challenge, but I’m very satisfied with how the final result came together.”
Block Decal
I’m thrilled to share that the design for our Decal System VS2.3 is progressing great! We have been iterating on this for a while, and it’s a massive step forward for the visual fidelity of VRAGE3. One of the most exciting additions will be the implementation of Natural Effect Decals down the line – simulated frost, dust, and water drops that react dynamically to the environment.
Here you can see the beginnings of the whole system with bullet hole decals – already working on subgrids:
And different Decals based on the Material:
And finally Voxel Decals & Parallax Mapping:
Question to you: Do you like the new colorful Fractured Material?
Share your thoughts in the comments below – I read them all, and they’re one of my favorite parts of making our games.
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The fractured material looks incredible. I’m sure this alone will do a lot to help with immersion.
Also, pushing water behind further back in development is definitely the right choice. I personally think the water is surprisingly similar as an exploration domain to the space itself. But since volymetric, physics-based liquid simulation is such a rarity (in any modern game), the first iteration of it should definitely be something that makes an impression. I intuitively get the feeling that implementation of water will bring the most amount of new players. I mean, it’s easy to imagine various YouTubers testing the game just and only to play around with the water physics.. It could end up being a very Minecraft-like viral effect.
And speaking about success, Marek, as always, just tell me if you need some big-time financial assistance. I have yet not bought the game, but am prepared to do so, when the (right) time comes… Those many euros will be racing directlty to your KSH’s bank account. And, obviously, you should make sure there is space for them, whenever they eventually get sent their way. I’ll give you a heads up in the comments of one of these dev diaries, so you know to prepare.
Regards,
Dr. Hammond
Interstellar Financing
Thanks for the feedback. I also hope that water will add new type of medium that players will engineer around, and new emergent things will happen.
Buying the game – if you wanna test the current state of SE2, now is the right time, IMHO. It’s not finished, it’s still just playable alpha, but there are real differences to SE1, and more players play it, more feedback we get, and the better the game gets.
Please can we have smaller oxygen farm blocks as well? Obviously they’ll produce less oxygen, but can allow for interesting decorational use. And when there’s one thing I love, then it’s functional deco.
And water of course. I really can’t wait for the water. Beeing able to build a base, a rover, a spaceship and a submarine all in one game sounds so amazing.
One thing I wonder though: Will there be any reason to actually go underwater other than because it’s cool?