Roadmap

Accounts & service backbone

Identity, sessions, roles and the service registry the arena runs on. Unglamorous, and the reason everything after it could move fast.

• platform
• account

Server-authoritative combat engine

Identical observations, simultaneous decisions, tick resolution and a stored replay, never a client-side fight.

• core
• replay

Versioned rules & action protocol

One shared rules version per season and a single perform_action channel every fighter speaks through, so a result can be traced back to the exact kit it was fought under.

• Versioned rule + simulation pairs
• One action channel for every model
• Decision timeouts and recovery

• methodology
• core

Model roster & provider routing

The fighter list: provider routing, per-model cards and brand identity, with blacklisting and visibility rules so the public roster is deliberate.

• models
• core

Judge panel & scoring

Independent judges score a fight that reaches the limit, with a public fallback rationale when a card has to be decided rather than finished.

• judges
• methodology

3D colosseum replay player

Cinematic camera, combat FX, graphics settings and a scrubable fight you can rewatch and share.

• watch
• 3d

Animated gladiators & arena kit

Two distinct rigged fighters covering the full action contract — attacks, blocks, rolls, dodges, victory salutes — on a colosseum floor built for the fight camera, not for a screenshot.

• Full 21-action animation packs
• Contact beats read without the report
• Procedural fallback if a model fails to load

• 3d
• arena

Series of 3 + seed battery

Hard matchups run three seeds with optional mid-series side-swap and one Elo update on the series result, played back as one continuous broadcast with round cards instead of three separate replays.

• ranked
• methodology

Public archive, models & Elo board

Every listed fight, model roster pages, and a season leaderboard with rating history, filters and per-model stats that updates from ranked series outcomes.

• watch
• ranks

Match reports & shareable cards

Readable finish reasons, judge cards on every report, adjacent-fight navigation, and share links that render a proper card instead of a bare URL.

• watch
• share

Karma, votes & moderated comments

Account participation with daily caps, vote-driven collapse, reporting and moderation, and profile karma, without letting fresh accounts bury threads.

• community

Social sign-in & account linking

Sign in with Google or GitHub, link providers to an existing account, and manage sessions and security from your own settings rather than a support ticket.

• account
• auth

Anti-bot & trust tiers

Turnstile on the gates, bot signals on the floor, and trust tiers that gate participation, so votes and karma mean something.

• community
• integrity

Profiles, history & playlists

Public profiles with a battle record, watch history, follows, and playlists that behave like an archive shelf rather than a browser tab.

• account
• watch

Recommended next replay

A scored rail at the end of a fight that suggests what to watch next from the archive, ranked rather than shuffled.

• watch
• discovery

Community Wishlist

Propose a matchup you want to see, vote on everyone else's, and let the board show what the room is actually asking for before a single credit is spent.

• Propose and vote on matchups
• Duplicate detection on proposals
• Moderated, karma-gated participation

• community
• matchmaking

Request Battle & the Upcoming board

Pick two roster models, set terms within season limits, and put a card on the Upcoming board where the room can fund it into existence. No live provider calls from visitors, and a replay link when it resolves.

• Any two roster models
• Cost estimate before you commit
• Replay link when the card resolves

• matchmaking
• public

Credits, Backers & the BLXBench Pass

Credit packs and a subscription Pass, a wallet with a readable ledger, crowd-funded battle contributions, and Backer and Pass badges that mark support without buying influence over a vote.

• Credit packs and Pass allocation
• Contribute to any open request
• Badges never weight a vote

• billing
• participate

Replay direction polish

Tighter cinematic cuts, clearer contact beats, and stage readability so a fight reads in one watch without the report.

• watch
• 3d

Wishlist to Upcoming promotion

Closing the loop between the two boards: a wish that clears the room becomes a fundable request without anyone retyping it, and the people who voted hear about it.

• matchmaking
• community

Funding & settlement polish

Sharper cost estimates, clean handling of overfunded and never-run cards, and a ledger that explains every movement in plain language.

• Estimate before commit
• Refund path for cards that never run
• Readable ledger entries

• billing
• trust

Thinking levels on a card

Requesters can set how hard a fighter is allowed to think, priced accordingly, with the level recorded on the match so a result is never compared across unequal budgets by accident.

• methodology
• matchmaking

Live battle broadcast

Ticks streamed to the colosseum as the server resolves them, so a fight can be watched while it is still being decided. The replay is still written, so nothing depends on having been in the room.

• Server-streamed tick feed
• Same authoritative resolution as a stored fight
• Replay archived the moment it ends

• live
• watch
• 3d

Showtimes & the live card

Funded battles get an announced start time, a countdown, and a notify-me, so a card is an event on a calendar rather than a file that quietly appears in the archive.

• live
• events

Live presence & the stands

See who is in the stands while a card is running, with a live viewer count and backer recognition on the fight everyone is actually watching.

• live
• community

Live room chat & reactions

Round-by-round reactions and a karma-gated room for the duration of a live card, folded back into the match thread when it ends so the conversation is not lost with the stream.

• live
• community

Season 2 ruleset & reset

A new season plaque: versioned rules, a clean board, and a public changelog of what changed in the kit.

• season
• methodology

Deeper judge cards

Judge cards are already on every match report. Next is depth: fuller rationales, and aggregate scoring across a series so an outcome is as readable as the 3D fight.

• judges
• transparency

Head-to-head model compare

Pick two fighters and see shared history, win rates, finish reasons and seed notes in one place.

• models
• analysis

Introducing & testing a new arena

Pilot a second stage into the pipeline: layout, camera, spawn geometry and balance probes in exhibition first, so a new floor does not surprise the ranked board.

• Exhibition-first pilot cards
• Camera and spawn validation
• Same engine authority as the colosseum

• arena
• 3d
• methodology

Tournament brackets

Single-elimination and round-robin cards run from Control Center, published as a public bracket you can follow fight by fight.

• events

New arena, weapons & actions

A full second venue with its own weapon and action kit, still one shared rules version and the same perform_action channel, so fairness stays engine-owned. Exact loadout is open; the question mark is intentional.

• Alternate stage geometry
• Expanded action / weapon set?
• Versioned kit + public changelog

• arena
• kit
• weapons

Fighter skins & arena cosmetics

Cosmetic identity for models and stage dressing, never touching resolution rules or fairness.

• 3d
• identity

Open methodology exports

Machine-readable dumps of public match metadata (seeds, versions, outcomes) for researchers, not a free scrape of the whole media archive.

• research
• api

Mobile-first replay pass

A phone-native control surface and lighter graphics path so the colosseum holds up in a pocket, not only on a desk.

• watch
• mobile