Abstract:
Roblox announced a series of new features at the annual developer conference RDC 2026 to further expand the application of artificial intelligence in game creation while changing the platform's past model of being highly dependent on its own ecosystem. In addition to allowing users to use natural language to generate games, Roblox also plans to allow creators to publish their works as independent applications to mobile phones, PCs and game consoles, and support players to directly enter the game through web links.
Roblox this time focuses on expanding the AI game creation tool Build, which was first announced in July. This function allows users to directly describe the game they want to make in natural language, and AI will then automatically generate game content that can be run. Users do not need to have traditional programming or game development experience. They only need to tell the system what they want to achieve through text, and then continuously modify and improve it through continuous dialogue.
Build was initially only tested in New Zealand, but now Roblox has expanded it to Serbia and Singapore, while adding desktop support. Previously, Build was mainly for mobile devices, but after adding the desktop version, creators can use a larger screen for game design and editing. The system will also add a new resource library to allow creators to more easily access game materials.
Roblox also plans to add prompt word-based scene generation functionality to Build later this year and extend this capability to Roblox Studio. At that time, creators can directly describe the game scenes they want to appear in text, and AI is responsible for generating corresponding content, thereby further lowering the threshold for producing 3D environments and levels.
Previously announced Build has been able to use AI to handle game mechanics, characters, environments, visual styles, sounds, achievements and other content. Roblox's own AI model is trained on a large amount of 3D models and game-related data to generate 3D objects and scenes that can be directly used in games. The company hopes that through these tools, game development will gradually transform from a complex job that required a lot of professional skills in the past to a creative process closer to "describe ideas-test-modify".
The more important change in Roblox this time is that it begins to allow games produced by these tools to come out of Roblox itself. The company said that in the future, creators can publish their works as independent applications to mobile devices, PCs and game consoles, and Roblox will still be responsible for serving as the game engine behind them. This means that Roblox no longer just requires players to enter its own platform to find games, but hopes to allow content produced by developers to appear on more devices and channels.
By the end of this year, players will also be able to open game links directly through their browsers and enter the game. Users do not necessarily need to open the Roblox client first and then search for corresponding works from within the platform. This model will further lower the threshold for game sharing and dissemination, and may also bring Roblox games closer to the distribution method of traditional independent games.
This strategic adjustment of Roblox means that the company is gradually shifting from "bringing more people to the Roblox platform" to "allowing creative content on Roblox to reach more places." AI lowers the threshold for game production, while cross-platform publishing expands the potential audience of these games. The combination of the two may change Roblox's future business model and platform boundaries.
In addition to game creation tools, Roblox is also strengthening the non-player characters in the game, that is, NPC. The company plans to give NPCs more capabilities, including adding NPCs that can automate game testing later this year. They can enter a game like a player, perform actions, and help creators spot problems to identify potential bugs before real players get to the game.
Roblox will also allow creators to add offline modes to their games. In an environment with poor network connection, players can continue to play part of the game content without having to immediately interrupt the game experience due to reduced network quality.
The player side also gets a new social feature. Roblox will launch a new Friends chat tab, a chat interface that will persist as players move between games and support voice input. In this way, players can continue to communicate with friends without frequently exiting the current game.
Roblox is also adjusting its content recommendation algorithm to recommend different types of games based on player age. For younger users, the system will recommend more games that require shorter play times; for older users, it will tend to recommend works that require longer play times. In this way, the company hopes to improve the matching of recommended content with players of different age groups.
In terms of game engines, Roblox has also added more 2D game development capabilities. The new feature supports the use of orthographic cameras to create 2D games, and also adds animated image containers and the ability to directly import sprite atlases, allowing developers to more conveniently create traditional 2D games and animations.
Roblox’s short video content stream “Moments” will also be further integrated with game commercialization. In the future, players can directly click on the avatar of any character in the video when watching a video in Moments and purchase the items used or displayed by the character, thereby connecting short video content, game characters and virtual product consumption.
In addition to the game itself, Roblox also announced financial services for creators. The company said that since 2013, game developers on Roblox have earned more than $5 billion in cumulative revenue, with creator revenue in the past 12 months alone reaching $1.7 billion. As the creator economy continues to expand, Roblox hopes to provide developers with more direct tools for money management and consumption.
One of the new services is Roblox Wallet. Eligible creators can have future earnings directly deposited into their wallets and receive payment in real money by the end of each working day, while also being able to transfer funds to other bank accounts. Roblox will partner with Airwallex to provide wallet services to users over the age of 18 in the United States, with plans to expand to other global markets in the future.
Roblox also previewed the Roblox Card, which is scheduled to be launched next year. The card will allow creators to use their earnings from Roblox directly to spend at merchants that accept the card. This means that Roblox is trying to further extend creator income from the virtual economy within the platform to the real-world financial system.
Roblox CEO and founder David Baszucki said that in the past quarter, players in 180 countries and regions around the world played more than 29 billion hours on Roblox. Such a huge user scale also forms an important foundation for Roblox to continue to expand the creator ecosystem.
From the overall strategy, Roblox is not simply adding a few AI functions this time, but is also changing the production, distribution and consumption of games. AI is lowering the technical threshold for making games, cross-platform publishing expands the distribution scope of games, NPCs can participate in testing and operations, and new financial tools further improve the channels for creators to obtain and use income.
For Roblox, this means that the platform may no longer be just a game platform with a large number of user-generated games in the future, but will gradually become a complete infrastructure covering AI creation, game engines, cross-platform distribution, content discovery, and creator financial services. As Build and related AI tools are gradually opened to more regions, game production work that could only be completed by professional developers in the past is increasingly becoming a creative activity that ordinary users can participate in through natural language.
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