Beta 1.5.2.20 — Patreon Exclusive Preview

Careers now end. New talent emerges. Your universe keeps moving.

Beta 1.5.2.20 is now available first to Wrestling GM 2026 GM Club supporters.

This update is built around three major themes:

• Characters now age and retire
• Community and GM Club features are arriving
• Shop and purchasing are becoming safer and more reliable

The biggest gameplay change is the introduction of Aging & Retirement.

For the first time, wrestlers, managers, staff members and AI General Managers have careers that naturally move toward an ending.

When someone retires, they don't simply disappear.

Their career is preserved.

Their history remains.

And new talent gradually enters the world to take their place.

Characters now age

Every:

• Wrestler
• Manager
• Staff member
• AI General Manager

now has a real age.

Each January, everyone gets one year older.

A character's age is based on their starting age plus the birthdays they've experienced during the save.

That means ages remain consistent even if the underlying character catalogue is corrected later.

Retirement

Characters can now retire as they get older.

Retirement isn't an instant random event.

When someone decides to retire, you'll receive advance notice.

The notice period can range from:

8 to 48 weeks

and the character gets a fixed retirement date.

Until then, they remain:

• Active
• Paid
• Bookable

Their profile and roster card show the retirement date and how many weeks remain.

Retirement ages

Different character types follow different career ranges.

Wrestlers

Eligible from age 40

Must retire by 60

Managers

Eligible from age 50

Must retire by 65

Staff and AI GMs

Eligible from age 60

Must retire by 70

The chance of retirement gradually increases between the minimum and compulsory retirement ages.

Custom characters

Custom Wrestlers and Managers receive additional protection.

They don't retire early.

They remain active until their compulsory retirement age.

At creation, those caps are:

• Custom Wrestlers: 50
• Custom Managers: 55

This protects characters you've personally created from disappearing earlier than expected.

Retirement announcements

Your own characters are handled privately.

You'll receive retirement notices through your inbox.

Retirements happening elsewhere in the wrestling world appear publicly in the feed.

This means retirement becomes part of the wider universe rather than only something happening to the player's roster.

The Archive

Retired characters are not deleted.

A new Archive has been added below Staff inside the Roster area.

You can:

• Search retired characters
• Filter the Archive
• Open their profiles

Retired character profiles become read-only records of their careers.

Their history remains part of your wrestling universe.

New talent replaces retiring characters

The game world now refreshes itself over time.

As older characters leave, new:

• Staff
• Managers
• AI General Managers

can enter the talent pool as replacements.

The aim is to prevent long-running saves from slowly emptying as the original generation gets older.

Your universe can now evolve from one generation into the next.

Community is here

Beta 1.5.2.20 also introduces the new Community area.

Announcements can now be published remotely to players.

Once received, those announcements remain available offline.

This creates a dedicated place for Wrestling GM updates and community information inside the game.

GM Club Arena

Supporters also get access to the new GM Club experience.

GM Club is presented as a supporter arena.

Your seat depends on your supporter tier:

• Ringside
• Floor
• Lower Bowl
• Upper Deck

Everyone appears anonymously as a GM by default.

You can choose whether to display your name publicly.

Claim your seat

Linking your supporter account claims your place inside the arena.

A Find My Seat action takes you directly to your position.

The layout is designed to fit properly on desktop without hiding the rest of the game's controls.

Safer Shop purchases

A large part of this update has also been focused on making purchasing more reliable.

The Shop can now display remotely controlled promotions.

Checkout automatically selects the appropriate store provider.

Purchases now require an account.

This allows the game to associate purchases with the right player and gives us more reliable recovery options when something goes wrong.

Better support when checkout fails

If a checkout fails, the game now provides a reference that can be sent to support.

That should make difficult payment issues much easier to investigate.

Checkout fixes

Several purchase flows have been corrected, including:

• Patreon checkout on mobile
• Optional cash payments
• Faction cash checkout
• Discount codes
• Guest checkout recovery
• Live pricing for Manager bundles

Cosmetics purchase recovery

Premium Cosmetic Bundle ownership now restores properly.

Unfinished iOS cosmetic purchases can also be recovered automatically.

The Cosmetics Studio now shows a collection wall so you can clearly see what is included in the bundle.

Faster and safer purchased portraits

Purchased portraits now load faster and more reliably.

After delivery, portraits are stored locally on your device.

That means the game doesn't need to repeatedly fetch the same purchased artwork.

Public preview versions can still appear inside Community Spotlight.

If a network download fails, the game attempts to recover the portrait from the device's local copy first.

Away wrestlers now recover properly

Wrestlers away on:

• Loan
• Developmental Excursion
• Talent Exchange

now continue recovering properly.

Their:

• Fatigue
• Rest
• Injury recovery

continues while they're away.

Underused booking filter

Match and Segment Booking now includes an Underused filter.

This makes it easier to find wrestlers who haven't received enough screen time recently.

For larger rosters, this should make rotation much easier to manage.

Better Manager portraits

Manager portraits now use the same processing flow as Wrestler portraits.

This gives the two character types a more consistent presentation.

Several desktop portrait crop issues have also been corrected across:

• Wrestler profiles
• AI Federation GM profiles

Cleaner Dashboard notifications

Dashboard area sheets now display no more than three notifications at once.

This prevents busy sections from becoming overloaded with alerts.

Progression text updates

XP descriptions have been updated to match the current:

• Signing rewards
• Progression rules

This removes outdated wording left behind by earlier progression changes.

Help Center refresh

The Help Center FAQs have been refreshed to better reflect the current state of the game.

Better startup recovery

A startup problem caused by damaged cached files has been fixed.

The game can now recover from that situation automatically instead of becoming stuck.

Player preferences

The game now records your selected preferences when a save loads.

This is intended to help guide future development decisions by showing which options players actually choose.

Patreon Early Access

Beta 1.5.2.20 is available first to GM Club supporters.

Aging and Retirement in particular is the kind of system where long-running saves matter enormously.

I'd especially like feedback on:

• Retirement timing
• Retirement warnings
• Archive presentation
• Custom character protection
• Replacement talent
• Community
• GM Club
• Purchase reliability

Membership starts from £2 / $3 per month.

Thank you

Beta 1.5.2.20 changes something fundamental about Wrestling GM 2026.

Careers now have endings.

Characters can build histories, grow older and eventually leave the industry.

The Archive preserves what they achieved.

New people enter the world.

And long-running saves can begin to develop their own generations.

At the same time, Community and GM Club create new ways to connect with the game, while purchasing and portrait delivery continue becoming safer.

Thank you to everyone helping test these systems.

Get early access

• Join the Wrestling GM 2026 GM Club for Beta 1.5.2.20 Early Access
• Join Discord and send your feedback
• Play Wrestling GM 2026
• Help shape future development

Build the federation. Manage the chaos. Create the history.