"Standalone Steam export"
You want a self-contained Steam title outside sbox.game — or you're evaluating whether standalone is worth losing platform services.
Since the March 2026 Facepunch–Valve license, s&box games can export as standalone Steam titles royalty-free (only Steam's cut). As of 2026-07 this is still in preview: distribution needs Valve approval per title plus a Facepunch license (public contact path historically garry@facepunch.com — (needs verification) of current process). Pilot cohort; nothing widely shipped standalone yet.
Export mechanics
Project menu → Export… → icon, splash screen, Steam App ID → self-contained executable.
- Base export ~500MB.
- PC only; the game must be on Steam (other stores allowed additionally).
Trade-offs
| Gain | Lose |
|---|---|
| Full .NET — no whitelist | Cloud asset streaming |
| Engine source access (per Facepunch terms) | Backend leaderboards / stats / achievements |
| sbox.game social layer / Play Fund path |
Hard gotcha
A standalone build that still has PackageReferences can hang on startup — it can't reach sbox.game to resolve them. Keep the dependency list clean before exporting.
Disabling the whitelist in a normal project is a one-way door toward standalone-only and blocks platform publish — don't flip it casually while still shipping on sbox.game.
Exact preview enrollment steps change — confirm against current Facepunch docs before planning a launch date around standalone.
Standalone is a different product surface: you trade the platform sandbox (services + whitelist + cloud) for a normal Steam executable. PackageReferences that assumed the sbox.game resolver have nowhere to go at boot, which is why a clean dependency list is load-bearing.