The Road Ahead 2026
Looking Back at 2025
2025 marked an important step forward for Colossus. With the release of a new version, the project moved beyond pure groundwork and began to show clearer shape and direction. Core systems were expanded, new layers of depth were introduced, and the game took a noticeable step closer to the vision we have been shaping from the start.
This progress did not happen in isolation. Over the course of the year, Colossus also grew behind the scenes. What started as a two-developer effort evolved into a small but dedicated team of six—bringing together both developers and artists. This growth allowed us to look at the game from new perspectives and to approach long-standing ideas with greater confidence and creative range.
At the same time, this progress went hand in hand with restructuring and refinement. As new features found their place in the game, existing systems were re-evaluated and adjusted to better support future growth. Some ideas proved their worth immediately, others revealed limitations that helped guide our next steps.
More than anything, 2025 helped us understand how the different parts of Colossus interact: how villagers, production, and settlement growth influence one another, and where the game truly comes alive. These insights now form the foundation for everything we are planning next.
Shaping the Road Ahead
As we move toward 2026, we’re closing our current Code Cleanup Milestone. This phase focuses on refactoring and restructuring large parts of the codebase to make future development more flexible, robust, and sustainable. While this work often happens behind the scenes, it sets the stage for everything that follows.
At the same time, we’re actively shaping the next milestones. New ideas are being explored, old concepts refined, and long-term systems are finally beginning to connect. Our goal is to release the next major version of Colossus toward the end of 2026—one that meaningfully expands both depth and atmosphere.
A Living Population
One of our main design goals for the coming year is to make villagers feel less like numbers and more like people. We want their lives to unfold in a way that feels grounded and believable. Decisions—such as which profession to pursue—should no longer feel random or purely mechanical. Instead, they should emerge naturally from who a villager is: their traits, their family background, their social standing, and the paths they’ve already walked.
This also means revisiting and expanding the social class system. New layers and distinctions are planned, allowing society within your settlement to feel more dynamic, more unequal, and more reactive to change.
An Economy You Can Read Between the Lines
The economy of Colossus is also evolving. Rather than simply producing and consuming resources, we want to make these flows more transparent and more meaningful. You should gain a clearer understanding of why resources are needed, where they are consumed, and how often they circulate through your settlement.
This is less about adding complexity for its own sake, and more about revealing the hidden machinery that already drives your village—giving you the tools to observe, anticipate, and influence it.
2026 is shaping up to be a year where many long-standing ideas finally begin to surface. While there is still much to discover, we’re excited to slowly lift the curtain and share this journey with you—step by step, stone by stone.
