- Sapiens development on temporary pause - 9 September 2026
Hi everyone, For the past few months, I haven’t been working on Sapiens, and the time has come to talk about that. Sapiens development is now on hold temporarily. I will return some time next year. I still very much intend to release 1.0, and then continue to add to Sapiens for the rest of my life. You’ve all seen the roadmap, we know what is planned in the game, and none of that has changed. The game is not abandoned, it’s a solid early access title. It just has a very long development timeframe. OK, but why the pause? For context, I have been working on Sapiens as my main full time project for around 11 years now. I was working on the conflict update last year, and it was coming together, you can play the current state of it on the unstable branch. But I hit a wall when I realized how fun conflict will actually be when it is complete. Yes you did read that right, it is shaping up to b…
- Progress Update - Conflict - 7 October 2025
Greetings!I have been making great progress over the past few weeks on conflict.The first step was to add a banish command. This is long requested, and was necessary for conflict, to be able to tidy up any elderly stragglers if you take over an AI tribe for example. So this now works, you can banish your own sapiens, and you can attempt to banish sapiens from other tribes too. You can now also recruit from ai tribes, and other tribes in multiplayer too.And it's not just a simple "always succeeds" situation anymore. When you recruit or banish (except when banishing your own sapiens, which always succeeds), there is a displayed difficulty dependent on their relationship to you, their tribe type and their loyalty to their tribes. This can be offset by the traits and diplomacy skill level of your sapien. If recruitment/banishment fails, you can usually just try again, but it can have some i…
- 0.6.1.2 - Bugfixes - 14 September 2025
New in 0.6.1.2: Pregnant, elderly and children sapiens now move away from sapiens belonging to hostile or unmet tribes Fixes bug where restricted building materials wouldn't be saved if you placed a building without issuing the build order Fixes bug where the 'build more' button on the radial menu didn't copy the correct building materials Fixes bug where in-progress placed/built objects lost their custom names when the final place/build action was completed Fixes bug where you didn't recieve a notification when new tribes were spotted Fixes bug where the garlic sapling was missing the collision hit box Fixes issues with half walls not lining up correctly with floors and other walls
- 0.6.1: Foundation blocks and Vulkan fix - 31 August 2025
It's been a slow few months of development, with a number of sicknesses slowing things down, and some big tasks requiring the update of a lot of assets. But we finally have an update! I had planned to work on more features first, but this contains a fix for the graphics driver related crash which needed to be addressed quickly. So we're getting foundation blocks and 1x1 floors a little early, and more content and gameplay features are not too far away. New in 0.6.1: Adds foundation blocks as a new option for building New textures for mud brick and stone block walls, floors, roofs and paths Adds 1x1 floors Improved frame rate Mud brick structures now degrade much slower in rain Fixes graphics driver related crash Fixes a bug where tile paths were not rendering some of the tiles Fixes bug not being able to plant close to garlic Lowers the population soft limit to 150 from 200
- Sapiens 0.6 update out now! - 15 April 2025
This update adds seven different breeds of fish! It also brings new detailed textures and shaders, improves all animal models and behaviors, adds a range of colors for alpacas and woolskins, and contains a number of bug fixes and balancing tweaks. Fish can only be caught via spears at the moment, which can be thrown from the water. Fish hunting and canoes in general still need some more work, and angling will be added within the next couple of updates. However fish are already a nice addition and a valuable food source. In other news, Majic Jungle has an employee now, it's finally not just me! Paddy has been working on all of the new models for this update, and we'll be continuing to refine these new models, as well as improving a lot of the other models, textures and animations. And this is just a start, there is a lot of new content in the pipeline. New in 0.6: Adds fish Improves Alpa…
- 0.5.1: Canoes, Point & Click mode - 19 November 2024
Hi everyone! A new update that has just gone out, which adds two major new features: Canoes, and point and click mode. Canoes are simply hollowed out logs, which provide a small amount of storage space, room for one sapien, and very fast transport over water. As well as making it quicker to retrieve distant resources, they also make it possible to trade with more distant tribes. Point and click mode is a whole new separate camera/control option, where instead of a first person 3D view, you can have a visible cursor always, and click on objects easily. This is a highly requested feature, is now the default, and should work well for many players, however the 3D camera mode will stay, and you can switch between them at any point in the settings or with ctrl+tab. As well as these two major features, there are many other tweaks and fixes. The population now grows faster, and levels off at a…
- New Roadmap! - 24 August 2024
With the release of the Sapiens 0.5 multiplayer update, a lot of the previous roadmap is now complete. Your feedback has helped to lead the direction of the game, and I have a few new features I want to add, so it’s time for a complete new roadmap! This roadmap covers all of the features I intend to add before the 1.0 release. There are many more features I’d like to add beyond that too, but this is a good set of launch features that can be achieved in a reasonable timeframe. VR is the only removal from the original roadmap, all other omissions either have been implemented, are still planned, or have been replaced by other equivalent features. The VR market has changed substantially in recent years, and my goals and priorities for Sapiens have changed a bit, but I do still genuinely want to support VR one day. These updates will mostly be going out in much smaller bite-sized releases fr…
- 0.5.0.79 - Hotfix update - 8 August 2024
New in 0.5.0.79: - Fixes bug where you couldn't enable mods in previously created worlds - Fixes crashing bugs when using translation mods, enabling storage sharing, and a couple of other rare crashes
- 0.5.0.78: Improved Co-Op Support - 7 August 2024
Hi everyone! Multiplayer is off to a great start in Sapiens, it’s amazing seeing the impressive builds and screenshots being posted around the community, and I really appreciate all of the feedback, reviews and kind words of support. This update focuses on improvements for when you are working together, with a new “Share Storage” setting which allows you to share the same settings and send/receive orders. It also makes it easier to see when you have restrictions on your storage areas and sleds, and fixes the issue causing many mods to fail to work. From here, I’ll be releasing on the unstable branch for a while, as I’m working on larger features including new content like canoes and fishing. I’ve also been working on a feature packed new roadmap, so that will be out soon! -Dave New in 0.5.0.78: Better support for storage/resource sharing in multiplayer, making it easier to work together…
- Sapiens 0.5 Trade and Multiplayer update out now! - 19 July 2024
Multiplayer In multiplayer, you each control a tribe, and can work cooperatively, sharing and connecting your villages to create trading hubs, shared accommodation, and large scale building projects. Play in persistent dedicated servers, host a LAN game, or invite a Steam friend to join. Set up and play Sapiens privately with your friends, or join public servers and explore villages built by hundreds of other players. AI Tribes and Trading Now all of those thousands of tribes that you can choose from when you start the game have come to life! If you choose somewhere with a lot of nearby tribes, they will now exist as complex AI controlled villages, with their own industries, trade requests and items to sell. Tribes will also establish themselves around you over time, and can offer unique types of items and resources that can be difficult or impossible to find elsewhere. Once you have gr…
- Sapiens multiplayer update is now available on the unstable branch! - 2 May 2024
Hi everyone! This is just a quick announcement to let you know that the Sapiens 0.5 update is now open to everyone for testing on the unstable branch. I am aiming for the 18th of July for the full release. Multiplayer is of course the biggest new feature in 0.5, and though there is a lot of tidying up left to do, it’s already working really well. We have a handful of persistent dedicated servers being run by the community already, with more coming online all the time, so if multiplayer Sapiens interests you, and you’re willing to help test it before it’s stable, then now’s a great time to jump in! Switching to the unstable branch means you can play 0.5 now, and will get frequent (every day or two) live updates as I fix issues and implement new features. As a result, it can be unstable, some updates will create new bugs, cause crashes, even potentially corrupt your worlds, so you should…
- Sapiens 0.5 comes with full multiplayer support! - 7 April 2024
Hi everyone! I’ve been making great progress on the next big update, and have some news to share, Sapiens 0.5 will come with full multiplayer support! Sapiens 0.5 will be available to everyone in 2-3 weeks time, on the unstable branch, with the full stable release coming in July. We’ve been running a private test with members of the community playing together on a persistent dedicated server for the past few weeks. Initially things were a little rough, with a number of bugs and performance issues to iron out. But despite this, it was clear early on that multiplayer was amazing. I still enjoy just sitting down and playing Sapiens from time to time, but these multiplayer sessions have been by far the most enjoyable for me. Watching other tribes grow, checking up on their progress, stealing their ginger roots when they were offline, just general good fun. Multiplayer adds a whole new dimen…
- Happy Holidays! - Sapiens mods to try - 18 December 2023
Thanks everyone for all of your support throughout 2023! The 0.5 update is progressing nicely, and over these past couple of weeks I’ve made a lot of progress on multiplayer and AI tribes. But with the update just about to enter the first testing phase, it’s still going to be another few weeks before it’s ready. So while you’re waiting, and with over 70 mods available, now is a great time to try out a few! If you haven’t installed any mods before, Sir Lich’s new Christmas 2023 mod is a great place to start, to add a purely visual festive vibe. Vanilla Tweaks makes it easy to configure a wide range of new options to change the gameplay and interface, and set things up just the way you like. Chop and Replant is a handy mod by Witchy that adds a new button to the radial menu, allowing you to automatically replant trees that have been chopped down. Some role assignment automation is coming…
- Development progress - Here's what's coming in Sapiens 0.5 - 13 November 2023
Hi Sapiens fans! I've been working hard on the big 0.5 update, and it is getting closer to being ready for testing. There are still a few more weeks of development left to go, but it's definitely time to share some details about what's coming. So what's new? Firstly, AI Tribes! Now in 0.5, when you are picking a tribe to lead, the other tribes around will actually be there in the game. They'll have their own villages, and you can send some of your sapiens over to meet them. Once you have met an AI tribe, you can then trade with them, or complete a variety of optional quests. Trading uses a "favor" currency, where you gain favor by providing resources that they need, or for completing quests. You can use this favor to ask them to deliver resources in return, and the more favor you have with a given tribe, the better they will treat you. Given that AI tribes will sometimes be some distanc…
- Update 0.4.2 - AI fixes - 8 June 2023
With this update your tribes will now function much more efficiently, and if they still don't quite do what you want, you now have a lot more control by prioritizing orders. New in 0.4.2: AI and fixes: - You can now prioritize any order at any time. Sapiens will tend to choose prioritized orders to complete first. - You can then deprioritize orders again to restore them to the default prioritization level - Different plan types are now prioritized differently by default, so idle sapiens are much more likely to choose a recruit or hunt order than a store order. - The outputs of prioritized orders retain the prioritization, so if you prioritize a gather order on an apple tree, then the store orders for the apples will also be prioritized - If you manually assign sapiens to an order, they will drop everything and are much more likely to continue to work on that order. - Sapiens are now a l…
- Minor Update 0.4.1 - 24 May 2023
0.4.1 is a minor bug fix update, mostly fixing issues relating to AI around compost bins, but with some important other fixes too. - Fixes issues with sapiens getting stuck delivering to compost bins - Fixes issues when restricting the use of rotten resources in the resources panel to disable composting - Sapiens will now carry and deliver multiple items in one load to compost bins - Compost now degrades after a year, as it was building up indefinitely and causing problems - Improvements to AI prioritization - Fixes issues when running on Linux under Proton - The hammer now degrades when blacksmithing - Sapiens no longer get hungrier while sleeping, which helps avoid having sick or injured sapiens starve and leave Though this update does contain some AI improvements, I'm working on another update with some more major improvements to the priority system and AI too, so you can expect 0.4.…
- Sapiens - Windstorm Update Out Now! - 18 May 2023
This second major update to Sapiens introduces new challenges and game mechanics, tools, weapons and building materials, and your tribe can now enter the bronze age! Windstorms Every couple of years or so, you can now expect to experience a windstorm severe weather event. These windstorms can damage buildings, blow things away, extinguish fires, and sapiens can get injured by flying debris. Windstorms are a fun new challenge to plan for and overcome. Composting & Mulching Soil quality will now degrade slowly if you harvest many times from the same area. To enrich the soil again, you can now mulch using manure or compost. Manure can be found where animals have been, and compost can now be produced from rotting organic matter in compost bins. Stone chiseling A number of new rock types have been added to the game, including granite, marble, sandstone (in a variety of colors) and lapis lazu…
- 0.4 "Windstorms" releases next week! - 11 May 2023
Sapiens is progressing nicely and the next big content update "Windstorms" will be ready to launch one week from now. The update is available for testing now on the unstable branch if you'd like to get an early look and help find those last few bugs. Full release notes are coming, but here's an overview of what's new in 0.4: Windstorms Every couple of years or so, you can now expect to experience a windstorm severe weather event. These windstorms can damage buildings, blow things away, extinguish fires, and sapiens can get injured by flying debris. Windstorms are a fun new challenge to plan for and overcome. Composting & Mulching Soil quality will now degrade slowly if you harvest many times from the same area. To enrich the soil again, you can now mulch using manure or compost. Manure can be found where animals have been, and compost can now be produced from rotting organic matter in c…
- 0.4 Progress Update - 9 March 2023
The next Sapiens update is coming along nicely, and I thought it was time to let you all know how things are going. After taking a bit of a break over Christmas, I started the new year working on a new mechanic for improving soil. So in 0.4 we will now have compost, manure, and mulching, which allow you to improve the soil quality and grow crops faster. To balance this and add realism, as you harvest or clear from the land, the soil quality now slowly reduces too, so eventually you'll need to move your crops to more fertile land, or mulch to put the goodness back in. Just after that was done, we got hit by a cyclone in New Zealand. It was a significant disaster, and we lost power for a week. But once I was able to work again, I started adding new building materials. It has always been my plan to give different building materials different strengths and weaknesses, and I'll be working mo…
- Sapiens now available for macOS - 13 December 2022
You can now play Sapiens on your Mac! Sapiens now runs natively and performs great on both Apple silicon and Intel. Sapiens was always designed to be a cross platform game, which meant it took only a couple of weeks to add support for macOS, and it made a lot of sense to do this now so more people can play. Throughout the early access development, I plan to continue to add support for more platforms, more hardware features, more modding support, and more quality of life improvements and bug fixes. It's really important to keep this work going alongside additional gameplay features and content, like what was released in the recent herbal medicine update. Have a great holiday season everyone, and I'm looking forward to working on the next big content update in the new year. - Dave https://store.steampowered.com/app/1060230/Sapiens/
