Winter Gameplay Update Part 1
The new season is well underway, and we want to thank you for your incredible response to Sorare 26, it’s already shaping up to be one of our best. Your energy, feedback, and passion have meant a lot to the whole team. Thank you for making this season so special.
We’re now building on this strong foundation to make the experience and gameplay even better.
As a reminder, we share major gameplay news in two defined windows — Winter and Summer — so every Manager has visibility and time to plan ahead, and it’s now time for our Winter gameplay updates.
How Winter Gameplay Updates Will Roll Out
The Winter window has two goals:
- Share gameplay news that impacts the current season or the transition into next season.
- Reveal new gameplay features for the leagues kicking off in early 2026, like MLS.
As usual, updates will come in phases. Partnership discussions, gameplay improvements, and prize pool decisions don’t always happen at the same time, and waiting for every detail to be finalized before sharing anything would mean giving you updates too late. It’s the same step-by-step approach that allowed us to shape a successful launch last summer.
This announcement is Part 1, mainly focused on current season and end of season transition updates. A second milestone will happen in January, centered on gameplay novelties and the competition structure linked to early 2026 league launches.
As usual, we may make small adjustments following this announcement if needed, and we’ll keep you updated along the way.
Let’s dive in. ⚽
Commitment to Sorare 26 Prize Pools
First, we want to reaffirm something important for our community. Many Managers asked whether the Sorare 26 prize pools will remain unchanged for the entire season. We can confirm that they will. The prize pools announced at the start of the summer (Leaderboards and Hot Streaks) will stay in place until the end of the season.
We know how much our community values stability across a full campaign, and we’re happy to deliver on that commitment, with exciting, consistent prize pools that remain valid throughout the season*.
Essence Transition From Sorare 26 to Sorare 27
We’ve seen Managers asking what will happen to their Essence balance at the end of Sorare 26. We want to clarify this now and give the community six months’ notice so you can plan and strategize with confidence.
Essence will become seasonal starting this year and your 2026 Essence will be converted into 2027 Essence at the end of the season using a degressive conversion system applied across all scarcities.
Designing this rule required a careful balance:
- Rewarding Managers who win and save Essence throughout Sorare 26, giving them a meaningful head start next season.
- Protecting the Sorare 27 card supply, ensuring a healthy economy, sustainable crafting, and exciting reward pools.
Here is how it will work 👇
The Conversion System
Here are a few examples of how much Sorare 27 Essence you would receive based on your Sorare 26 Essence balance:
- 1,000 Essence 26 → 1000 Essence 27 – 1 craft
- 150,000 → 15,000e Essence – 15 craft (maximum)
You can simulate the conversion yourself based on your balance to see how much 2027 Essence you would receive:
Important Notes
Balances Under 1,000 Essence
If your Sorare 26 Essence balance is below 1,000, it will be converted only into Crafting Clues. No Sorare 27 Essence will be granted for balances under this threshold.
Maximum Carryover: 15,000 Essence
A maximum of 15,000 Sorare 27 Essence (corresponding to 15 craft 150,000 Sorare 26 Essence.
Excess Essence Beyond the Cap
Any Sorare 26 Essence beyond the 15,000 converted amount (i.e., above 150,000 Sorare 26 Essence) will be returned as additional rewards, ensuring none of your effort goes to waste.
More details on these additional rewards will be shared closer to the end of the season.
For comparison, last season featured a rigid cap of 650 Essence under the old scale, equivalent to 13,000 Sorare 26 Essence after the ×20 adjustment. This meant a maximum of 13 crafts, and any Essence earned above 650 was simply lost.
Summer League Exceptions
Standalone leagues that start in early 2026 and will be mid-season when the transition happens like MLS will not be affected by the conversion.
Examples:
- If you hold 1,200 MLS Essence, you will still have 1,200 Essence after the transition.
- If you hold 1,200 MLS Essence + 3,500 European-league Essence, your post-transition balance will be:
- 1,200 MLS Essence (unchanged)
- 2,000 converted Essence (from the European balance using the conversion system)
- Total: 3,200 Essence
- 1,200 MLS Essence (unchanged)
Conversion Timing
The Essence balance conversion will take place in June or July, before the launch of Sorare 27. We will share the exact date closer to the end of the season.
Essence Flavor Transition
More details on flavor transition will be shared in the coming months. The direction we’re taking is to ensure your Essence flavor split remains as consistent as possible.
For example, if your Essence at the end of Sorare 26 is 50% Bundesliga and 50% Jupiler Pro League, we will aim to maintain that same distribution after conversion.
However, adjustments may be required depending on the final Sorare 27 competition structure, especially if competitions are added, removed, or reorganized.
Summer Leagues: First Gameplay Insights
As mentioned, we’re not yet ready to fully reveal the gameplay tied to the Sorare leagues launching in early 2026. However, we want to share a few important pieces of information and give you early insight into the direction we’re taking.
Classic Slot Confirmed
To start, we want to confirm that the Classic Slot will remain part of In-Season competitions under the updated gameplay for the leagues kicking off in early 2026.
Preserving the Classic Slot is important to us: it ensures every Manager can always play their favorite or top card in a lineup, regardless of its season.
Gameplay Direction
We know how much you enjoyed Hot Streaks in Sorare 26, and how popular this “beat-the-game” mode has become. While we’re not yet ready to share detailed gameplay or prize pool information for the leagues kicking off in early 2026, we can say that the direction we’re exploring is to make this mode even more central for Limited and Rare.
This could include:
- A larger share of the rewards allocated through Hot Streaks compared to Leaderboards.
- New features built around its core mechanics
- UX improvements that highlight and enhance the mode
More details will arrive in January.
For Super Rare and Unique, we will continue interviewing Managers and designing gameplay specifically tailored to the needs and expectations of these scarcities.
Substitutes
We know that DNPs, and whether there should be a mitigation system for them, have been a major topic of community discussion. We’ve followed all your (sometimes heated!) debates closely, and we want to thank you for the valuable feedback you’ve shared.
It’s clear that this is not a consensual topic. The community is almost evenly split between those who want us to address DNPs and those who feel they are an inherent part of the game.
We are not yet ready to confirm the long-term direction for substitutes, but we are considering testing a DNP mitigation in competitions for leagues kicking off in early 2026.
This test would not impact any ongoing In-Season Sorare 26 competitions. It would apply only to newly launched competitions, such as MLS.
We’ll keep you updated in January as soon as we have a final decision on whether we will proceed, and, if so, what this test will look like. We are doubling down on interviews and surveys to gather as much community feedback as possible. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to continue sharing your thoughts on our social channels.
Licenses & Competition Structure
Partnership discussions are still in progress, so we’re not yet able to share a full breakdown of the summer league licenses and competition structure. As soon as these elements are finalized, we’ll provide a complete overview in our January communications.
Other Gameplay Updates and Information
From L15 to L10
Starting in February, we will transition from L15 (average score over the last 15 games) to L10 (average score over the last 10 games) as the reference football performance indicator.
The L10 average will include the last 10 games, whether the player played in them or not.
This shift makes the metric more dynamic and better representative of a player’s current form, rather than a 15-game average that can span several months.
This change will have no significant impact on gameplay: caps, lineup bonuses, etc. will remain exactly the same, just using L10 instead of L15.
We will announce the precise switch date in the Winter Gameplay Update Part 2 in January.
Card Supply
We’ve seen some questions about the pace of card sales this season and the overall supply. Please note that this rhythm is expected and directly tied to our seasonality model, where the majority of market supply is distributed early in the season.
We’re also happy that this gives more room and liquidity to Manager Sales, which will naturally become the go-to place for purchases as the season progresses.
Reward supply is managed separately, and we do not anticipate any meaningful issues there.
However, you may notice that certain specific players could run out of stock before the end of the season. This is mainly due to the new crafting system, especially Crafting Clues.
For example, a player whose identity is very easy to detect through a clue combination (like a Greek Jupiler Pro League player such as Christos Tzolis) may see their supply run out faster than others.
But rest assured: apart from a few specific cases, reward supply overall remains healthy and stable.
That wraps up Part 1. In January, Part 2 will bring the full reveal of the new gameplay for upcoming league launches, detailed prize pools, and more.
Thank you for your support, and as always, keep the feedback coming!
*Rewards may be offered in cash, ETH or other digital assets of equivalent value. Prizes may vary and are subject to applicable law.