Sure, we might be in the waning weeks of January 2026, but that’s not stopping the volunteer developers of City of Heroes: Homecoming from taking stock of 2025 as well as, naturally, looking forward for a moment into what’s cooking this year.
The retrospective opens with a wide-reaching stats list that covers data like number of characters created, popular archetypes, and supergroup stats. Incidentally, nearly 400K characters were made in 2025, with Brute being the most popular archetype, while all four of the advanced archetypes were the least popular by a large margin. Robotic Masterminds were also the most popular primary powerset, Penelope Yin was the most popular TF, and nearly 8K hero and villain supergroups were created.
Next was a general look back at work done to COH last year, which the team characterizes as a focus on improving stability for the MMORPG as its hardware ages, while the team is looking to refreshing its hardware to both make the game more stable and cost less to operate. The devs also called attention to new analytics tools it has on-hand, which they say will allow them to provide more transparency about the game at a potentially regular cadence. Tangential to that is a player satisfaction survey that can be filled out until January 31st to further help the team out.
Finally, there’s a general outline of what’s coming in 2026, though it comes with the very large asterisk about timing being fluid and no plans being fully set in stone. Assuming timelines pan out as hoped, Issue 28 Page 4 should arrive in late spring, and Issue 28 Page 5 should come in the fall, both of which will continue the overarching storyline of I28 as well as bring new powersets, costume pieces, base items, badges, and customization features. The post closes with some sneak peeks as well, such as what appears to be a unique enhancement slot for dual origin enhancements, new costume bits, and what looks like a new social area.
