The bug that made time stand still

The first reports after the move to private worlds all said the same thing, in different words: I skip days and nothing happens.

For a game whose whole premise is that time moves when you press the button, it was the worst possible bug. On 18 May 2026 we found it.

One calculation, all-or-nothing

When you advance time, the game walks through every day between today and the date you chose, and for each day it plays the matches, updates injuries, runs training, moves the transfer market and checks in with the board. Each day is saved as a whole or not at all, so that you can never end up with a world that is half in one day and half in the next.

One of those daily routines gently brings the board's mood back towards neutral. A small calculation inside it failed — a number was handled in the wrong format — and because each day is all-or-nothing, the whole day was undone, including the new date. From the player's side, nothing happened at all. The fix itself was tiny.

Sixteen routines nobody was running

Finding that bug exposed a bigger one. In the old shared world, many routines ran on a fixed timetable. When we moved to private worlds that only advance when you ask them to, sixteen of those routines were never connected to the new way of moving time. Even with the calculation fixed, parts of your world would have stood still.

We connected them all, grouped by rhythm:

• Every day: players age, recover their condition, and the board's confidence drifts; player values, news and transfer rumours update.
• Every week: wages and sponsorships are paid, training and player development are applied, mentoring and squad dynamics update, stadium pricing takes effect, new staff become available, morale settles and player agents make their moves.

Proving it worked

We did not want to declare victory after one click. We moved a test world from 31 March to 10 July and checked that it had really lived through those months: the inbox filled with new messages, the club's balance went down week after week as wages were paid, every player in the world had aged, and thousands had improved or declined in training. That is what "time passing" looks like in numbers.

The wizard that came with it

The same day we brought the creation of a new save together into a single eleven-step wizard: name your save and choose a base country, pick the leagues of your world, then shape your club — name, colours, crest, kits, formation, personality and stadium. Almost everything can be changed later in your club settings. The guide to creating your first save walks through it.

The lesson

The calculation was small. The missing routines were not, and they had gone unnoticed because nothing crashed — they simply never ran. Since then, whenever we change how time moves, we compare the world before and after. If time has passed, the numbers have to show it.

Next: build your own world — 211 countries and up to 40 leagues.