by Joppa & Nephele
Joppa’s Thoughts
Hey everyone, Joppa here.
I’m writing this on Christmas day, reflecting on this past year and the year to come. Whether you’re logging in for a quick run before family arrives, squeezing in “just one more pull” after the kids go to bed, or simply lurking in Discord while the house finally goes quiet… I wanted to take a moment to say thank you. To those who have been with us from the beginning all the way to those who have just recently jumped in; you’ve shown up with your time, your patience, your passion, and your feedback. We don’t take any of it for granted.
Thinking Back On 2025
This year was full of doing two things at once: adding new places and experiences to Terminus, while also building the structural pillars we need to get the game into its final, launch-ready shape.
Here are a few of the beats that stand out to me as definitive moments in 2025:
- I can’t reflect on 2025 without acknowledging Early Access launch, and a very successful one at that.
- We’ve had a solid cadence of content updates this year: Knightwolf Knoll, Smoldering Trenches, Ashbreather Enclave, Black Rose Keep, Wildmound Cradle, Hyrith Hill and more.
- Overall, we expanded and refined content while listening to how you actually play. This was a major goal in my own character playthroughs that I’ve been streaming, doing a better job of seeing the game through your eyes. It has been immensely helpful (and has removed me how addictive Pantheon can be)!
- By December we delivered a major update to the Wizard class, introduced mounts and taming, and global lightning improvements.
Then to cap the year off, we hit you with a blitz of information about what’s coming in the Spring and Summer of 2026. It’s been an amazing year, but in many ways, it has been a year of stage-setting for an even more amazing year to come.
My Most Anticipated Updates of 2026
As of this moment, these are the three things I’m looking forward to most:
1) Class updates
Class identity is sacred in Pantheon. Your class is not a “loadout,” it’s a role, a toolkit, a mindset. We want the moment-to-moment gameplay to reflect that.
In the Spring 2026 update, every class will see adjustments, improvements, and in most cases, new abilities. As combat becomes more deliberate and sustain-focused, classes will have a deeper arsenal and more impactful tools and choices to meet that pace.
2) Unified NPC Templates
This one is huge, probably my most anticipated overall. We don’t want Pantheon to feel like two separate games anymore; no more “solo game” and “group game” with a hard wall between them. That wall has been one of the biggest enemies of organic grouping, enticing exploration and freedom of character progression.
3) The Mastery system
I can’t wait to dig into this, feel out the different expressions the classes will have, experiment and build a playstyle. The Mastery system means characters will have a longer tail of meaningful progression beyond “I dinged, I swapped a piece of gear, next.” Very excited for this one.
Closing Thoughts
As another Christmas Day comes to an end, I’m reminded of how thankful I am for all of you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for caring enough to give feedback. Thank you for testing the messy parts, celebrating the wins with us, and holding us accountable to the vision that brought all of us to Terminus in the first place. We couldn’t do this without all of you, so thank you, truly, for being on this journey with us.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all! We can’t wait to see you in Terminus in 2026!
Neph’s Thoughts
Hi everyone! Neph here.
2025 was kind of a crazy year, wasn’t it? Of course, we launched into Early Access on Steam just before the beginning of the year, but we also released Wild’s End at around the same time. Then we added Knightwolf Knoll in February, alongside moving to Unity 6. The Druid class came online in March, Smoldering Trenches and the Ashbreather Enclave arrived in June and July, Black Rose Keep in September, and most recently the Wildmound Cradle in November. Along there were also a lot of bug fixes, refinements, and improvements based on what you all were telling us. I had sort of forgotten how many until I went back and looked at all the patch notes for the past year and the sheer weight of it all hit me. I’ll be ok in a few minutes. Promise.
As big as 2025 was for us, 2026 is going to be even bigger. You all probably saw the roadmap update last week, so I won’t rehash it, but we’re going to be bringing you several big releases throughout the year. We’re already working on the updates for the spring, and detailed planning is happening for the major releases coming after that. We’re committed to having a fully realized MMORPG available when we reach our 1.0 launch, with everything that it entails, and we’re working hard to get there. We’re glad to have you all along for the journey.
On a personal note, I am probably most excited about two things coming up in the Spring – our Public Test Realm and our Player Market. I’m excited about the PTR because it’s going to help us catch more bugs. There are a lot of bugs and issues in MMOs that simply don’t show up until you have hundreds or thousands of players playing together. The PTR will give us a much better chance of finding those and addressing those ahead of time. I’m excited about the Player Market because we’ve needed it for a while, but also because having a fully functional game economy is a key pillar of having a game that’s built on the core idea of encouraging social interaction between players.
Seriously though – thank you so much for supporting us this far, and we hope you’re as excited about what’s coming in 2026 as we are. Hopefully everyone is enjoying the holidays, and we’ll see you in January!