A New Game Mode Rooted in Mobile-First Design

The Sandbox NEXT is live. The Sandbox opened pre-registration for the NEXT playtest on March 18, with the window running until March 25 at 2 p.m. UTC, and the playtest itself beginning yesterday, March 26. The playtest runs through April 5, with spots limited and allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. 

NEXT marks a return to the franchise's mobile roots, referencing 40 million historical downloads on mobile. The title is the first standalone battle royale built specifically for phones, and it represents a clear departure from how The Sandbox has operated as a primarily desktop and browser-based metaverse platform.

The broader context matters here. The Sandbox has been under new management since summer 2025, with Animoca Brands taking a more direct role in day-to-day operations after the founders stepped back. NEXT appears to reflect that new direction: a move toward mass-market game genres, higher production values, and platforms where the next wave of players actually spend their time.

Built on Unreal Engine, Not Unity

NEXT marks a notable technical shift: the title is built on Unreal Engine, a departure from Unity, which has underpinned The Sandbox platform to date. That engine switch is not cosmetic. Unreal Engine brings a production quality ceiling that better fits the competitive mobile market, and it signals that The Sandbox is positioning NEXT as a title capable of standing alongside mainstream battle royale games rather than serving only an existing crypto-native audience.

NEXT is powered by $SAND and offers multiplayer extraction and survival gameplay in which players carry over their identity, progression, and all voxel assets from The Sandbox platform, including user-generated content and branded items. That continuity between the main platform and NEXT is one of the more consequential design choices. It means a player's NFT avatar does not sit dormant when they exit the metaverse and pick up their phone.

Two Maps, PvP Focus, and Avatar Interoperability

Players are dropped into one of two environments: the Desert, an open-terrain map built around sightlines and long-range combat, or the City, a vertical close-quarters setting that rewards adaptability. Both solo play and multiplayer with up to 20 players will be supported, and the game features auto-aim and auto-shoot mechanics to suit mobile input.

The weapon choice teased in the CEO's post, guns versus swords, hints at at least two distinct combat styles within the same match environment. That asymmetry, where different playstyles coexist in the same battle royale format, is a deliberate hook for players who prefer close-range melee over ranged combat.

Player avatars from over 56 collections of branded items, including Snoop Dogg, Attack on Titan, Smiley, Steve Aoki, and Paris Hilton, can be equipped and used within NEXT. For collectors who have spent on branded NFT wearables inside The Sandbox ecosystem, that integration turns passive collectibles into active gameplay assets.

Mobile as an Ecosystem Growth Strategy

Season 7 of The Sandbox, currently ongoing, introduced three browser-based games as a frictionless entry point to the ecosystem. NEXT is the next step in that mobile integration push. 

The strategic intent is direct: reach players on the device they use most, reduce the friction of entry, and bring them into an ecosystem that layers NFT ownership and $SAND token mechanics on top of familiar game genres. Battle royale is among the most played mobile formats globally, and entering it with a web3 identity layer is a different proposition than asking a new user to navigate a desktop metaverse from scratch.

"Like our recent launch of WebGL games, The Sandbox NEXT is part of our plan to increase the reach of The Sandbox so players can discover, play and come back more often, whether they're on desktop or on their phone," said Robby Yung, CEO of The Sandbox. "The goal is to meet people where they spend their time. A native mobile experience in addition to the desktop version makes that possible in a way browser access alone can't."

The Sandbox Platform: Voxel Metaverse With Over 400 Partners

The Sandbox is a voxel-based metaverse platform and subsidiary of Animoca Brands that lets players create, own, and monetize digital land and experiences. Over 400 partners have joined The Sandbox, including Warner Music Group, Gucci, Ubisoft, Paris Hilton, Attack on Titan, Snoop Dogg, Lacoste, Steve Aoki, and The Smurfs. The platform's native token, $SAND, powers transactions across the ecosystem, including land purchases, in-game rewards, and governance participation.

The LAND system gives players and brands the ability to own parcels of virtual real estate as NFTs, build experiences on them using the VoxEdit and Game Maker tools, and earn from the activity those experiences generate. That onchain ownership layer is what makes the identity portability in NEXT meaningful: assets minted or purchased on the main platform carry genuine token-level ownership that extends into the new title.

The Sandbox leverages web3 technologies to enable creator economies, giving both players and creators true ownership of their assets, creations, and rewards as NFTs. NEXT takes that model and applies it to a mobile-first shooter where the same assets that sit in a player's Sandbox wallet can now follow them into a live battle royale match.

The playtest runs until April 5. Additional features are expected to roll out beyond that window as the team iterates on feedback from the live test phase.