Arena and World Roadmap 2026

[p]Hi everyone![/p][p]You haven’t heard from us here in World for a little while because, after recovering from nationwide sanctions and relocating out from Russia (read more here), we’ve been busy working on our other project — Screeps: Arena. We’re very proud of what we’ve created, and of the fact that the Screeps franchise now has two games that complement each other. They’re built to scratch the same itch, but each with its own flavor. If you’re a World player, why should you give Arena a try? Here are a few features:[/p]

[p]Matches run at a super-fast pace and finish within seconds.[/p]

[p]You can quickly test different strategies by using specific opponents as test cases.[/p]

[p]Each match is executed with a single guaranteed code instance — there’s no Memory, since you can store direct references to objects across ticks.[/p]

[p]A new season every 3 months introduces different arenas and challenges to keep the meta changing and leave room for newcomers.[/p]

[p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]In this update we’re excited to announce two things. First, we’ve launched the World + Arena Bundle on Steam, which allows owners of one game to get the other at a 10% discount (this discount stacks with sales). And second, you can now purchase an Arena key for 12 Access Keys directly from within World! We hope this makes it even easier for more players to get more thrills out of programming your creeps.[/p][p]Where to get Access Keys?[/p]

[p]Purchase in the official Item Store.[/p]
[p]Earn them as season rewards.[/p]
[p]Buy them on the in-game market. And here’s something new: every month we will sponsor a number of Access Keys (and CPU Unlocks too by the way) and list them as NPC orders on the market. This will let you make use of your credits while also helping to control credit inflation.[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]So what’s next? Arena still has two major updates (Trophies and Decorations) left in its pipeline. Once those are done, we’ll be fully shifting our focus back to World. Here’s our roadmap for 2026.[/p][p][/p][h2]World Roadmap 2026[/h2]

[p]Regular seasons. We’re bringing back regular Seasonal World restart every three months. Two months of active seasonal gameplay, then a 2-week break, and another 2 weeks for the pre-spawn phase before the next season begins. We want to keep expanding on the seasonal concept as a fun way to experience the MMO world for players who enjoy fresh content and a fair start.[/p]
[p]Power Creeps. We still have two Power Creep classes that were designed but never released: Commander and Executor. We plan to develop and launch these classes in one of the upcoming major updates.[/p]
[p]New mechanics. We’re revisiting some previously discussed but unreleased ideas for new game objects and mechanics, such as Warp Containers.[/p]
[p]New shard. We’re planning to launch a new shard where controller ownership will be available by unlocking the shard with a one-time spend of several Access Keys. Since this shard is supposed to be "premium," we’ll be doing everything we can to make ticks as fast as possible, potentially even around the 1-second mark![/p]
[p]Runtime update. We’ll update Node.js to the newest version and work on bringing ideas from Arena’s runtime into World. This includes ES module support, folder support, built-in JS definitions, better native script uploads through the Steam client, and an official VSCode/vscode.dev extension with editor, console, and memory features.[/p]
[p]And of course many long-overdue fixes and improvements along the way.[/p]

[p]It’s still difficult to give any concrete dates or the exact order in which these updates will be released. But we’re confident that 2026 is going to be a packed and exciting year. Stay tuned![/p]