WBS26 Demo — update 9.09.26
Heads-up first: saves from the 7.09 demo will not open in this build. The state layout changed, and a half-applied load produces a career that misbehaves weeks later instead of failing honestly — so old files are refused at the door and the menu says so once. Sorry for the restart; better now, in a demo, than after a month of booking.
Events now tell you what they are
Every event arrived in the same speech bubble from the same assistant, so a public match result read exactly like a backstage rumour. All 211 events now carry a tag: a real problem between real people (money, health, morale, contracts) or something the audience saw — part of the show. The popup says which.
And the two lines that decide the choice are finally on screen. "Why this matters" was being resolved and then thrown away; "if you do nothing" sat behind a collapsed panel. Both now sit in a stakes box between the story and the question, always visible. You were choosing blind. That's on us.
The 3D broadcast only goes up when it can look right
The arena now builds only when every wrestler in the match has a finished body of his own. Anyone without one used to be drawn as the shared generic mesh, which turns a card into strangers wearing the same face — worse than the 2D broadcast, which covers all 47 match types and everyone in the game. You will see 3D a little less often, and never with clones in it.
Alongside: a man on the mat may no longer skate. Downed bodies were being carried across the canvas at 3-8 m/s by a moving lerp target; that is rate-limited now. Boundary handling for lying bodies became directional, which was the largest single source of the "bodies magnetise toward the ropes" look. Plus new wrestler models (Tidal, Riot Cabaret, PCW) and a slower, heavier alternative move set measured off classic-era timing.
Straight from your reports
- Free agent region filter knew four regions; the roster has eleven. You could not filter for a Brit, a Spaniard or an Australian at all. It reads the pool now instead of a hardcoded list.
- Signing someone threw the list back to page 1 of 13. A refresh was resetting the page the same way a new search does.
- The profile showed stand-ins instead of real stats: Safety read professionalism, Promo read charisma, Selling read psychology, and Hardcore was the number 45 for every wrestler in the game.
- Not one of 1748 wrestlers had a tag team value, so everybody read as Poor. Derived now from team membership, tag titles and the attributes tag work leans on.
- Dates loaded from JSON came back as floats — every save carried "2/1.0/2026.0".
Promotions stopped sounding like one company
Nine AI personalities existed, and all of them ran as the same one — the branches keyed on fields no promotion pack ever filled in. The packs describe themselves now, so the federations around you book, spend and react differently.
Smaller things
The date under "Next show" is that show's date, not today's. The calendar's Grid/List pair shows which one is on, and no longer offers the same button twice. The pre-advance reminder stopped pointing you at a rival's card (it was scanning every federation — 34 AI shows sit ready in week 1 alone). Storyline suggestions can be dismissed, and the list refills with the next-best pair. The champion walks out with the belt he defended, not the one tonight's winner just took from him. Month names read correctly in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish. Free agent columns sort.
Unchanged: the demo still ships five promotions, and the 3D broadcast still runs for one-on-one matches only.