SAND: Raiders of Sophie Addresses Cheating, Matchmaking, and Trampler Capture

The developers of SAND: Raiders of Sophie published a community Q&A on July 17, 2026, responding to player questions on three recurring concerns: duo queues, anti-cheat, and the disabled Trampler capture mechanic.

What changed (and what's planned)

• Duo Queues: The studio declined to introduce a dedicated duo queue, citing matchmaking fragmentation. Instead, the team will attempt to match players onto servers where all teams are the same size "whenever possible" — though larger teams (within queue limits) may still appear occasionally.
• Anti-Cheat: Meaningful improvements require a significant rewrite of the character movement and interaction systems, which will allow the server to validate client-sent data. The studio acknowledged that cheaters will not be eliminated entirely but expects "significantly fewer" and better identification of those who slip through.
• Gear Compensation: The studio stated it cannot technically identify every loss caused by cheaters, and stopped short of promising gear restoration.
• Trampler Capture: The mechanic was disabled due to cheater abuse and will return only once that abuse vector is closed. The team described it as "a top priority" and noted it will also be reworked to make the underlying exploits harder to execute.

The Q&A offers no timelines for any of these changes, but it does frame the anti-cheat rewrite as the load-bearing work that most other fixes depend on — meaning players should expect the current state to persist until that rewrite is complete.