Hey, Zoobsters!

The Level 20 Festival was a great success, with many players upgrading their characters all the way to level 20. And we liked the outcome so much that we’ve decided to make some character upgrade discounts permanent.

We want to decrease discrepancies between newer and more experienced players while making it more affordable, accessible, and fair for everyone. Thus, we are making three significant changes.

 

Reduced costs to reach level 20

Additional character levels are a natural part of the game’s growth, but the vast majority of our players never come close to having a fully maximized character. With new characters joining the roster, the possibility of collecting strong characters became disproportionately expensive and time-consuming. In short, this steered Zooba away from an economically viable design.

After a lot of investigation, we are now making a historic cut to the total cost required to get a character to max level. The most enjoyable experience in Zooba is fully experiencing one character, then moving on to another, and another, and so on. We also want to encourage more high-level players to face each other, and an endgame that is more about skill than accumulating resources over several days. Yes, Zooba is officially becoming less P2W.

Players who played at least one match at level 20 in 2025 before this update will get an exclusive skin: Diamond Nix. This is a reward for reaching such a milestone, and there is no other way to get it! It will be sent through the Mailbox soon.

 

Ground movement speed nodes are removed from the upgrade tree

Another important point in Zooba is the movement speed scaling with character level. We’ve learned that high speed in Zooba is something that you players appreciate, especially on larger maps like Central Zoo.

However, the speed at the highest levels became excessive, creating distortions in the gameplay genre itself. When a fast opponent appears, strategy and skill often take a backseat – it becomes nearly impossible to escape, and equally difficult to land a hit. This dynamic became a major factor affecting the overall competitive experience.

To achieve a better balance between these two conflicting desires (higher speed overall and limited maximum speed), we are now moving toward permanent upgrades. The general speed baseline will no longer vary with your character’s level. This shift will make the game a little faster for the vast majority of characters. Decoupling speed from level progression is another key step we are taking to make Zooba less P2W.

 

Ranked Events are being turned off

Together with upgrade costs, there’s still one major factor affecting both the P2W feelings and the matchmaking experience: Ranked Events. These events currently reward the number of matches played instead of skill or performance. This setup pushes players to grind heavily, which often leads to trophy drops and, in turn, worsens matchmaking for everyone.

Some players used to grind Ranked Events to boost their progression. To transfer such incentives, throughout this year, we’ve introduced a new way to unlock characters (Zoo Cage) and worked on several initiatives to address matchmaking issues and make battles fairer. To achieve our goals of providing the right incentives and rewards, we’re disabling ranked events. 

The rewards previously available through ranked events will be gradually redistributed across other systems, and we’ll soon be introducing a new and improved reward system to take their place.

 

Stay tuned!

With these changes, we expect to make Zooba better for everyone, including all types of players. We understand this might feel like losing some things, but we truly believe in what we’re building, and better times are ahead. We hope you’ll be able to see that too! Stay tuned!

 

The Zooba Team