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Hotel ArchitectNewsComing to 1.0: Custom Sandbox Mode
Community

Coming to 1.0: Custom Sandbox Mode

Hotel Architect · published 8 May 2026, 16:00 UTC

All newsPlayers around this dateRead on Steam

Hello Hoteliers,

WE'RE OFFICIALLY LESS THAN 1 WEEK AWAY FROM LAUNCH!

Throughout Early Access, a long requested feature has been for a custom sandbox mode that lets you set the max size and location of your hotel. Well... we have been listening, and today we're revealing a teaser of what this custom sandbox mode will look like! ːCriticInspectionː

Creating a Custom Sandbox Game

In 1.0, the custom sandbox mode will be instantly accessible in the main menu of the game.

Set the Environment

There are three types of environments available in the sandbox mode:

  • The Forest

  • The Desert

  • The Snowland

Each location comes with a different temperature. Whilst the forest is ambient and comfortable for guests, the desert is extremely hot (similar to Las Vegas / Santorini) and the Snowland is extremely cold (like St Anton).

Set the Buildable Space

Then, you can set the buildable space (ranging from Tiny through to HUGE!) and the shape which defines the area and maximum number of floors your hotel can have.

To give some comparisons to the current locations available size-wise, here are three examples of what you could do in the custom sandbox mode:

  • You can create an area size more than 4x the area of Santorini (which would be 2,500 tiles total, in comparison to Santorini's 576).

  • Using the same area size as Las Vegas, in the Custom Sandbox mode you could build up to 25 floors!

  • Or, with the New York City Area size, you can build up to 100 FLOORS!

* Please note, increasing the number of buildable tiles will make the game more demanding, which will be important to bear in mind depending on your hardware.

Set the Roof Type and Exterior Wall Colours

Another unique feature of the custom sandbox mode is that you will be able to choose the outer wall material and roof design when you start the game. Giving you even more creative freedom than ever before!

Setting the Difficulty

Another new addition to the 1.0 version will be difficulty modes, these apply to the Scenario, Free Play and Custom Game Mode. This was another highly requested feature, so we're thrilled to be bringing this into Hotel Architect!

Difficulty settings range from casual to challenging, but you can also customise these settings to your liking. Whereas the casual difficulty gives you a higher starting budget, and does not include features such as staff aging and salary management, the challenging mode is the opposite. That means it's entirely up to you how you choose to play!

Once you've decided your environment and difficulty settings, you'll be ready to begin! We can't wait to see all of the hotels you create in the custom game mode.

Here's everything else coming to 1.0 on May 14th:

We hope that you've enjoyed reading all about the Custom Game Mode, and we can't wait for you to check-in NEXT WEEK! Thank you for all of your support through Early Access, you have truly helped to shape Hotel Architect into the game it has become today.

If you haven't already, be sure to join our Discord Community: https://discord.com/invite/hotelarchitect

- The Hotel Architect Team CriticInspection

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