Grand MALL Simulator

Grand Mall Simulator entered Steam Early Access on December 20, 2024, and has been receiving consistent, substantial updates since launch. Over the first year, the solo developer (the studio was originally two people, but the partnership dissolved) shipped major additions including: a third-floor opening with cinema, gym, bakery, and café (January 2025); a banking system and Unreal Engine 5.5 upgrade (February 2025); outdoor shops and a full exterior overhaul (April 2025); a housing and apartment system (May 2025); project-wide performance optimization (July 2025); and a fully redesigned material procurement system with supplier offices and contracts (August 2025). On August 9, 2026, the developer published a significant update explaining a lengthy development gap. The original two-person team split due to a profit-sharing dispute, leaving the sole remaining developer — who had handled design, art, and business but not programming — to take over the codebase from scratch. After completing development courses and fully documenting the inherited code, they returned with a patch that reverts the controversial material ordering system, adds working customer parking, performs major VRAM and texture optimizations, and upgrades the engine to Unreal Engine 5.7. The post explicitly states: "I'm now fully ready to keep developing the game on my own" and promises more patches in the near future. The game remains at version 0.56, well short of a 1.0 release, and the developer has directly communicated their intent to continue updating it. The development gap from August 2025 through August 2026 is now explained and resolved by the August 9, 2026 post.