Probably Stolen

Developer

Questing Goose Studio^[1][2]

Publisher

tinyBuild^[1]

Released

Oct 28, 2026^[13]

Platform

Windows (Steam)^[1]

Price

$19.99 (10% off at launch, until Nov 11, 2026)^[11][3]

Mode

Single-player, with Steam Workshop mods^[1][13]

Starting scenarios

9^[10]

Copies sold

1 million (Nov 6, 2026, per the developers)^[18]

Steam reviews

96% positive from nearly 3,000 (Oct 30, 2026)^[17]

Overview

Probably Stolen casts the player as a former scavenger who got a storefront through a loan and now answers to a landlord whose rent keeps rising.^[1] Its Steam page describes a towering station divided by wealth and corruption, where the best margins sit in legal gray areas and any customer might be a Security informant, a revolutionary or a fallen member of the elite.^[1] For each deal the player can approve, refuse, report the customer or look away, and those choices shape standing with the station's factions.^[1] The game is single-player.^[1] It is played in first person from behind a counter, with customers coming to the window one at a time.^[22] It costs $19.99 in the United States and is available in English, German, Japanese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, French, Spanish and Polish.^[11][1]

0:12 The pawnshop counter From tinyBuild's announcement trailer of Aug 3, 2026: the counter where goods and the people selling them are checked before a deal, the core of the game.

Development

Probably Stolen started as a solo project by Bei Ning Pan, who had earlier interned at The Coalition, Ubisoft Montreal and Eidos.^[2] It was built on a shelved project called Space Looter, a turn-based crawler set on a science-fiction space station, which Pan reworked into a shopkeeping game after coming back from a trip with the idea.^[2] He named Space Station 13 as his biggest inspiration, with some influence from Papers, Please, and listed The Witcher 3, Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Space Station 13 among his favorite games.^[2] By the August 2026 announcement, the studio had grown to Pan with four artists and three audio developers.^[2]

An earlier form of the game is listed on Steam as Deepspace Emporium, a gritty shopkeeping sim about a former scavenger facing rising rent.^[5] According to tinyBuild's chief executive, Alex Nichiporchik, its demo peaked at 28 concurrent players, and the publisher liked the concept enough to work with the developer on new visuals and a clearer focus.^[4] PCGamesN credited that makeover, which also brought the new name and marketing, for the game's later success.^[3] DualShockers called Probably Stolen the studio's first title.^[22]

Gameplay

Each in-game day the player opens the shutter, calls customers to the counter, buys and sells, and closes for the night.^[23] Goods are stored on a grid inventory that GameSpew compared to the Resident Evil series, so space limits what can be bought.^[21] Each kind of item has its own risk: cigarette packs must be inspected before resale, water has to be tested and filtered, weapons need permits, and rare goods need appraisal.^[1] Sellers overstate what they bring, and a misjudged item or seller is the shopkeeper's loss.^[1]

0:42 Buying and selling on day one The creator Aliensrock buys from sellers and sells to buyers at the counter on the first day of the August 2026 playtest.

The player can also relabel counterfeit goods as genuine or fence stolen ones, at the risk of Security inspections and raids.^[1] GameSpew and DualShockers both likened the close checking of goods to Papers, Please.^[21][22] From the second day, the player can leave after closing to scavenge a Dumping Ground for materials, with a rising chance of injury over five attempts.^[23] Rogue AI hosts called Augs look like ordinary customers, and every faction agrees they should be shot.^[1]

5:48 Naming a flaw In the August 2026 playtest, Aliensrock opens the check panel and picks what is wrong with an item on offer; a correct call brings its price down.

Rent, factions and winning

Rent is 200 credits every seven days and grows on each rent day by a percentage set by the difficulty.^[23][24] The four difficulties, Price Gouge, Mark Up, Thin Margins and Red Ink, set the shop's automatic markup, how fast rent rises and whether the landlord allows a grace period.^[23] On Mark Up, the normal setting, the store's deed costs 12,000 credits on the first day, and on Red Ink it costs 36,000.^[23] Owning the store, by buying the deed or by paying off a loan shark's mortgage, is the way to win.^[23][24] AllThingsHow counted 17 endings, 2 of them wins and 15 losses.^[24] Six factions react to the player's choices: Lower Levels, Upper Levels, Security, Black Market, Revolution and the Sector 13 Cartel.^[24] As of Nov 7, 2026, Steam showed that 25.7% of players had earned the achievement for owning the deed, and 2.3% had won from the Rock Bottom start on hard mode.^[25]

Starting scenarios

A run begins with one of nine starting scenarios: Apprentice, Water Merchant, Fence, Gunsmith, Chemist, Hydroponic Farmer, Aquafarmer, Rat Wrangler and Rock Bottom.^[10][13] The developers recommend the Apprentice to beginners as a generalist start.^[10] The Gunsmith begins with a class 1 weapon permit and a stock of firearms, and the Aquafarmer breeds tilapia in recirculating tanks.^[10] The Steam page says each product line has its own way of ruining the shop: weapons bring inspections, chemicals bring addiction, water brings liability and contraband brings raids.^[1]

0:38 Trades beyond the counter From tinyBuild's announcement trailer: the trades a shop can be built around, such as water, weapons, chemicals, crops and fish, and the machines behind them.

Rock Bottom, added to the playtest on Aug 6, 2026, starts the player with nothing, and the studio calls it maximum difficulty.^[27][10] The Rat Wrangler began as a secret scenario and was made visible in the playtest a day later, and the Aquafarmer joined the demo on Oct 19, 2026.^[29][28]

1:04 A start from nothing The creator ambiguousamphibian begins a Rock Bottom run on launch day, Oct 28, 2026, with no items and no credits.

Release

Questing Goose Studio and tinyBuild announced the game on Aug 3, 2026, as Probably Stolen: Cyberpunk Pawnshop Simulator, with a playtest open to all.^[2] By Aug 28 it had 100,000 wishlists, and 100,000 people had tried the playtest.^[6] Players asked for more customers, perks, items and machines, and for more ways to customize the store.^[7] On Sep 14, at tinyBuild Connect, the studio set the release date and replaced the playtest with a demo that added the Water Merchant scenario, handling of several items at once, sorting and a toolbox.^[7][8] Gaming Trend ranked the demo second among the most played of October's Steam Next Fest, behind Worst Class Ever.^[9] Wishlists reached 500,000 on Oct 27.^[12]

Version 1.0 launched on Oct 28, 2026, at 9:00 a.m. EDT, at 10% off until Nov 11, and the demo was retired.^[11][13][3] Launch bundles discounted it for owners of games including Graveyard Keeper 2, Potion Craft and TCG Card Shop Simulator.^[15] The release added the buyout ending with end-of-run statistics, four difficulty options, Steam Workshop support, vending machines and 21 achievements.^[10][13] The first hotfix came out less than three hours after launch.^[14]

Sales and players

The studio reported 200,000 copies sold in the first few hours, a peak of more than 86,000 concurrent players within 90 minutes, and second place on Steam's global top sellers.^[15] After 24 hours it reported more than 350,000 copies, 320,000 unique players and a peak above 112,000, finishing the day among the 12 most played games on Steam.^[16] TheGamer, citing SteamDB, put the number playing at about 101,000 a day after release, against a peak of 28 for the Deepspace Emporium demo.^[4] Sales reached 500,000 by Oct 30, when PCGamesN reported a peak above 125,000 players.^[17][3] The developers announced 1 million copies sold on Nov 6, 2026, nine days after launch.^[18] Steam counted 132,335 people playing at 06:20 UTC on Nov 7, 2026.^[26]

Reception

Steam user reviews stood at 95% positive from more than 400 on launch day and at 96% positive from nearly 3,000, rated Overwhelmingly Positive, by Oct 30, 2026.^[15][17] GameSpew's Kim Snaith gave it 8 out of 10, praising its visuals and its involved, varied play and calling it more than a standard shopkeeping sim, while warning that its many systems may be too complex for some players.^[21] DualShockers' Eric Warner gave it 6.5 out of 10.^[22] He credited its many specializations and difficulties with replay value and called it fairly impressive for a first title, but faulted highly repetitive loops, customers who repeat the same few lines, and music limited to a few cassette tapes.^[22] He also noted that going out means traveling to set locations rather than walking the station.^[22] The developers' launch posts quoted praise from smaller outlets, among them Alternativa Nerd, The Wand Report and Punto De Respawn.^[16] Its Steam record listed no Metacritic score as of Nov 7, 2026.^[1]

Updates and roadmap

After launch the studio said it was patching every day from player reports.^[17] A launch-day hotfix cut the Moisture Farm from 650 to 350 credits and the Water Filter from 50 to 25 after feedback on the balance of water trading.^[20] Update 1.0.0.12 of Nov 6, 2026 let players shoot most story characters to end their storylines, expanded several characters' stories, and added an option to stop customers inspired by pop culture from visiting.^[19]

2:26 The Water Purifier The creator Recreational Suffering's Oct 30, 2026 guide shows a Water Purifier turning a standard bottle of Rustwater into high-quality water overnight.

With the 1 million milestone, the developers published a roadmap: November for bug fixes and quality-of-life work, a Junker update with a new starting profession in December 2026, and major updates in January and April 2027 with new items, perks, characters and machines.^[18] Every update on it is free, and the studio says support will continue past those six months.^[18] Before launch it had also promised Organ Trader and Street Food Vendor scenarios, an expansion of the main story that will affect the station and the ending, expeditions on which hired characters such as a scavenger go out, and new items to appraise.^[10] As of Nov 7, 2026, the game is sold only for Windows, on Steam.^[1]

Timeline

1. 2026-08-03 Announced with an open playtest.^[2]
2. 2026-08-06 Rock Bottom scenario added to the playtest.^[27]
3. 2026-08-28 100,000 wishlists and 100,000 playtest players.^[6]
4. 2026-09-14 Release date set at tinyBuild Connect; a demo replaces the playtest.^[8]
5. 2026-10-19 Aquafarmer scenario added to the demo.^[28]
6. 2026-10-26 Demo ranked second among Steam Next Fest's most played.^[9]
7. 2026-10-27 500,000 wishlists.^[12]
8. 2026-10-28 Version 1.0 released on Steam for Windows.^[13]
9. 2026-10-29 More than 350,000 copies sold in 24 hours.^[16]
10. 2026-10-30 500,000 copies sold.^[17]
11. 2026-11-06 1 million copies sold; roadmap to April 2027 published.^[18]