Habbo Hotel: Origins - A mid-year letter and the plan for 2025

Hi everyone, Macklebee here. In January I wrote about “the future” for Origins and what we felt was the right direction. This is a check-in on what actually shipped, what changed because of your feedback, and what we’re lining up for the rest of the year. If you read our sister product’s long-term vision piece in late August, you’ll recognise the spirit here: clear goals, honest trade-offs, and a focus on making your day-to-day time in the hotel feel worthwhile.

Since January: where we actually landed

A look back with the goal of making short sessions feel satisfying and reducing small frustrations, as a reminder here is the post in which I outlined the original goals for the future of Origins.

• Stamps, clothing, and Infostand customizations We launched stamps as an earnable currency you can spend on clothing, and launched Infostand customizations alongside it. Since then we’ve added numerous new clothing pieces and infostand customizations, allowing you to express yourself fully!
• Horizons! Horizons introduced new layouts that take builds beyond the hotel into coral reefs, distant moons and the sea floor. Your poll support backed the direction strongly, which gives us confidence to add more themes that change how a room feels at first glance. We’re hoping to add more soon, we’ve seen some great examples within the community.
• BattleBall, another season The season played better on pacing and fairness. Queue health and team balance still need attention, and we heard you on the need to try and find a solution for, what you all call, “priority’. We’re thinking hard about this before we introduce a new season.
• Daily Tasks & Community Goals, first pass Daily tasks hit the hotel and kept many of you moving, but parts of the list felt like chores. That feedback drives the redesign below that I’ve outlined below. Community Goals on the other hand have seemed to hit well. We want to bring them more frequently, but in order to do that, we need to introduce additional sinks for your stamps.
• Sticker Book, candid status Code complete, ready to ship, but held back. The stickers you receive through gameplay should reflect something you actually did. We’re still at work wiring stronger triggers across skills and events so pages tell your story, not just your presence.

Community-driven additions

Outside of what I spoke about in January, the community has been a huge contributor to the direction of the game, and that shows in the updates we’re talking about below. These are new to the game this year, and have helped bring a touch of character to Origins, moving it in its journey as we prepare to launch to new audiences.

• Bulletin Board, in-game calendar, and new, calmer notifications. Open the Board anywhere, check what is going on, confirm event times, and get low-key nudges for new posts, events starting, friend milestones or special visitors. A new way to get information on what’s happening in the hotel. If you missed a notification, simply check your messenger, where a historic list of things you missed is now available to you
• Skills, today and tomorrow. All skills introduced to the game run to level 99. Fishing converts every catch straight into tokens you can spend on furniture or clothing, which keeps the loop tidy. Gardening brings planters and growth cycles that add texture to rooms at your pace. We’re exploring new skills, including one that feels good in a group and still works solo.
• NPC Shops, with Noco in the mix. NPC Shops offer furniture from lines that are no longer on sale. For example, a trader might stock items from the Sports line and give you access again by trading selected furni instead of spending credits. Noco, our travelling trader, ties into this loop on the first Wednesday of each month and gives the market a focused, lively moment as people start to trade a Christmas Duck for multiple Club Sofas!
• Moderation and reporting. Block and a personal Bobba filter add practical control. A huge improvement from the previous “Ignore” capabilities. Blocked users will no longer be able to interact with you at all, and you won’t see them in your day to day roaming of the hotel. Reporting from the Navigator and straight from chat history makes flagging issues quick and calm.
• Events. Short, time-boxed events like Ophelia's Blessing, Fishing Frenzy and Wobble Showdown add rhythm between larger drops, so there is usually something worth doing even on a brief visit.

Near-term plans already in motion

These are the items you will feel soonest. We will poll Short Stay Furniture, Shutter Showdown, Titles and Consumables before rollout so you can help tune details.

• Tutorial Park. New Habbos will land in a friendly fork of Infobus Park. NPCs introduce fishing, gardening, NPC Shops, infostand customization and everything they need to know about getting furniture to start building with. Users will leave with stamps, a small plan and enough know-how to build without needing credits on day one.
• Steam launch. Targeting the start of October. Steam should make jumping into the game simpler and put Origins in front of more eyes. Ahead of release we plan to invite a small cohort to test the Steam client, gather performance notes and catch edge cases.
• Daily Tasks, redesigned. We’re replacing most checklist items with quick scenes you play with NPCs. Clean dishes in the kitchen, whack a croc in the picnic area, help a stranger find a lost dog. Short, fun, and no need for alts or large groups.

• Short Stay Furniture. A stamp-based way to bring most catalogue pieces into your room for a limited time, with sensible exceptions such as rares. It lowers the barrier of entry for our new users, allowing them to experience building without the need to purchase credits. It reduces the cost of creative builds for things like room competitions as you could offset some of the cost of furniture with your stamps, and lets you prove an idea in place before choosing what to keep permanently. This will be polled relatively soon, keep your eyes peeled. A win-win in our eyes!
• Titles. We want to ensure that there are more things in the hotel that allow you to express and even show off. We’re going to revisit titles, after their rejection over a year ago. A slightly different focus, different areas to show them off, and an understandable progression path to unlocking rarer/cooler titles.

• Shutter Showdown. A weekly photo theme with anonymous submissions, community voting and stamp rewards. We’re adding checks so entries match what can actually be photographed inside the hotel. This will also be polled ahead of launch. We shared a sneak peak of Shutter Showdown bacon July, check it out here if you want another look.
• Consumables. Event drops and crafted items (think brewing seaweed from fishing, into a bubble juice stout) that grant short effects. A modest fishing XP boost for twenty minutes, or a playful duck transformation. Most will expire; a very small set may be ever lasting.
• Sticker Book, when the pieces click. As these loops ship, the book gains the context it needs. When a sticker reflects a real beat in your play, we will open it.

Through the end of the year

Use this as your planning board for rooms, groups and free evenings.

• October - Gardening Expansion: Harvest Grounds

  We’re introducing new things to grow! Autumnal variants of existing plants, new pumpkins plant and a set of new Halloween themed NPCs, some with their own line of goodies! Set up sprinklers and trade plants as we roll out most of the remaining features that polled Yes in the recent gardening poll. The Picnic area gets an autumn refresh with new NPC chatter and small tasks connected to the Daily Tasks redesign!

  

• November - Mystery Cross Over. We are working with a major collab we cannot name yet. Expect unique, Origins only furniture, fresh Horizons, themed nameplates and a new public room, shaped to feel like an occasion while staying true to Habbo.
• December - Fishing Expansion: Arctic Dawn. The Arctic line steps forward. The Arctic Fishing Hole will let you fish in private rooms! It is meant to be cozy and convenient rather than the fastest path, and it will not include the golden fishing mini-game. We’re going to have a plan for all of those cute little penguins too!

A continued push for polish

Polish matters as much as features. We know a handful of furniture are still missing names, and a few do not behave correctly in larger rooms. Fixing those issues is a priority before the Steam launch. You should feel the hotel getting cleaner, not just bigger.

- Dave aka. Macklebee, Origins Product Lead