Space Engineers 2 News

Space Engineers 2: Birth of a Planet

Up next on our roadmap is Vertical Slice 2, introducing two brand-new planets to explore - Verdure and Kemik. It also lays the foundations for the future Space Engineers 2 survival experience, featuring the first draft of colonization and mission systems.

Let us introduce you to Jan Trauske, the lead of our amazing Art Team!

He will share some of the secrets behind how we created our new planets and brought their unique look and atmosphere to life.

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Space Engineers 2 Dev Diary: October 23, 2025

[h3]VS2 – Planets & Survival Foundations[/h3]
Let’s sit down and talk for a while about how survival building will work in Space Engineers 2.

You will be placing an animated projection of a block instead of its lowest build state. This makes planning and building feel much closer to creative mode – more intuitive and accessible for everyone.

And that’s not all. This system opens up a whole new level of creative possibilities in survival mode – including mirroring, copy/paste, modular blueprint building, and even undo & redo!

Here you can see SE2 projection particle effects – a small WIP preview of what we are refining right now.

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Unlock screens will appear to announce your progression, giving a clear sense of achievement as you advance through the game.

We are constantly optimizing and tuning LODs and grid performance – the goal is simple: keep large builds smooth without losing visual quality.

Our SE2 Art team is refining Delfos to become a true brown dwarf – adjusting its color and light scattering to give it that deep, warm glow and massive sense of scale.

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In VS2, you and your grids will have the option to fast travel between major space stations. This will let you move through the Almagest system before you gain access to high-tech jump drive technology.

Of course, the old way of slow traveling everywhere – without any loading screens – is still there for those who enjoy the journey.

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More tree physics testing and tuning:

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And it’s not just trees that are fully destructible – we now have exploding rocks too!

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Single trees can be great for savanna biome – but I always wanted more. Here are our first tests of full forests on Verdure.

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[h3]After VS2[/h3]
Me and the teams are already planning our releases after VS2. We will share an updated roadmap together with the VS2 release.

[h3]VS3 – Water[/h3]
You can take a look at block permeability testing here – water is pouring through a grinded block. It’s an important step toward making our water simulation behave more intuitively, following how players naturally expect water to react.

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Our water also got less uniform shore foam:

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Overall, water visuals are already looking better and better! Each new tweak makes the surface movement, reflections, and color feel closer to what you’d expect from real water.

Question to you: Why does the flora on Verdure look so much like Earth’s? Who planted it when the first Bering colonists arrived just ten years ago, and how could it have spread across the entire planet?

Full Blog Post: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2025/10/mareks-dev-diary-october-23-2025/

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Space Engineers 2 Dev Diary: October 16, 2025

One of the last touches to our planets is adding tree variations. Different shapes, sizes, and colors give each biome its own character. Even small visual differences can change how a whole area feels when you explore it.

We’re also making final adjustments to biome transitions, especially between grass and snow. These areas now blend more smoothly.

And we won’t stop improving our planets even after the VS2 release. There’s still plenty we want to add and refine to make them feel even more detailed and dynamic over time.

Remember when we showed you the first prototypes of multi-character emotes? Here’s a look at a much more refined version. These improvements will allow us to create proper story cinematics in SE2!

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NPCs won’t be part of the VS2 Update – planets and survival foundations are already massive tasks on their own. However, we’re already working on all the named characters that will appear in the future SE2 storyline.

So how will you get missions if there are no NPC characters in VS2? For now, this will be done through a Contract Block, which will serve as your main interface for receiving and managing your contracts.

Our art team keeps improving their workflow – this time they revealed their Kitbash Library, a collection of small detail elements used to add those final touches and ensure every block is rich in detail.

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We’ve also polished all the block build stages, making the construction process more visually consistent from start to finish.

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A small but useful visual feedback feature is the new welder particle effects that change based on your distance from the block, clearly showing when you’re too far away to weld effectively.

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How important is it for you that Space Engineers 2 has strong lore, memorable characters, and a storyline woven directly into the sandbox experience? Do you prefer a deeper narrative layer, or would you rather keep the focus purely on engineering and exploration?

Full Blog Post: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2025/10/mareks-dev-diary-october-16-2025/

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Space Engineers 2 Dev Diary: October 9, 2025

I’m super proud of the magic our render team is practicing. Because honestly, how else can you explain these latest screenshots?

Tree destruction tuning is successful – they no longer explode all over the place. Now they fall and break much more naturally.

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And of course, we can’t forget to tune ship collisions with Verdure flora – something tells me you’ll be using this feature a lot!

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We finalized biomes and voxel transitions. In real life, you don’t have only desert, rocky, or snowy terrain – everything blends together naturally. The same goes for our planets in SE2.

We’re using procedural masks and height based blending to merge materials smoothly across different terrain types. Each biome mixes gradually with the next, creating natural borders shaped by altitude, slope, and humidity/temperature. We made sure transitions are seamless at every distance and every LOD, so planets don’t end up looking like a patched clown costume.

The Art Team is working not only on VS2 content, but also thinking far ahead with our development – working on both surface flora and the underwater environment. The goal is to make the transition from land to water feel natural and alive, with its own atmosphere, vegetation, and lighting.

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There are also new blocks connected to the water feature. The team is exploring several water-related concepts, and the latest concept art is looking really nice.

Here are the first try-outs of ocean waves tessellation. It’s early, but the shape and motion are starting to feel right.

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And we are experimenting with the possibility of textured water foam.

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If you haven’t done that already – don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. You don’t want to miss the reveals coming later this month!

Full Blog Post: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2025/10/mareks-dev-diary-october-9-2025/

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Space Engineers 2 Dev Diary: October 2, 2025

VS2 is primarily a planetary update - but it will also contain all the foundations for survival systems.
One of them is the new Inventory screen, along with all the essential features. Here you can see moving resources, splitting them using a slidebar, or type in an exact number or amount.

We have the first visuals of Delfos, the brown dwarf at the center of the Almagest system. Everything in this system, even the bright star Almagest, is placed around it. The visuals are still a work in progress as we fine-tune the contrast and brightness, but they already highlight the unique atmosphere and color palette that will set Delfos apart from other celestial bodies.

Colonization map implementation for VS2 is starting to take a more concrete in-game shape.

Planet Map: https://2.spaceengineersgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/MapPlanetClouds2.gif

We are fine tuning colors and saturation to give the planets a more vibrant feel. Small touches like this make the terrain, biomes, and skies stand out more, helping each planet feel distinct and alive.

We are also working on voxel material transitions across planetary surfaces. The goal is simple - make sand, soil, rock, and snow biomes blend cleanly at the edges so the terrain reads well both up close and from altitude.
At ground level you should see clear texture detail without hard seams. From far away the same areas should group into readable shapes without turning into noise.
Getting this right takes tuning masks, falloffs, and filters per biome, but it pays off in smoother slopes, cleaner cliff lines, and more natural looking terrain.

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We have the first implementation of tree fractures in SE2. When you cut or crash into a tree it now splits into logical pieces with proper colliders, particles, and temporary debris. The next step is tuning - so trees don’t “explode” all over the place. 🤭

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When you drill or destroy the roots of a tree, it will fall and break apart. This adds a more natural way to clear forests, and it makes interactions with trees feel more physical and grounded. Again, fine-tuning is in progress.

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We are optimizing the performance of flora, caves, and other planetary features as they load on the planet. Step by step, we are getting closer to a smooth experience when exploring and traveling across different biomes.

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And I will leave you with more images. I can’t believe how quickly the planets are coming together and how beautiful they are starting to look - all thanks to the work of our talented teams.

Full Blog Post: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2025/10/mareks-dev-diary-october-2-2025/

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