In 2023—dubbed Decentraland’s ‘Year of the Creator'—the Decentraland Foundation concentrated on unleashing creators' creativity and enhancing the fun factor in Decentraland, resulting in the release of 68 new features and products! The highlights from 2023 included SDK 7, Smart Wearables, Emotes 2.0, a revamped Backpack, and much more.

However, in pursuing the goal of improving Decentraland's performance, the encountered challenges and limitations signaled the need for Decentraland to embark on a new chapter in its development journey. Get ready, 2024 promises to be an exciting year for Decentraland with major changes already in motion!

This year, the Foundation’s work will be driven by a forward-focused strategy, drawing on insights from Decentraland's 2020 launch, evolving market trends, community needs, and new technologies. Centered around pivotal architectural changes, this plan lays the groundwork for Decentraland's future growth. In 2024, Foundation teams spanning from product development to marketing and all departments in between will align their efforts with 4 key goals:

• Release a New, Advanced Desktop Client

• Remove Entry Barriers For New Users

• Invest in the Creation of Engaging Content

• Support Community Growth

The primary objective of 2024 will be to construct and release the next generation of the Decentraland Client. A key component of the platform’s future foundation, a new Client is crucial to fulfilling the vision of a performant and immersive virtual social world. Moreover, Decentraland’s Client needs to be future-proof, capable of being adapted for alternative platforms—such as mobile and VR—while serving as an engine for high-quality creator tools.

Also essential to establishing a strong platform for future growth is removing the barriers to entry for new players and creators. Making Decentraland more accessible to all will welcome a wider variety of users to the virtual world, enriching the community that shapes Decentraland’s landscape. Improving accessibility will involve expanding language support, diversifying payment methods, improving educational resources, and avoiding crypto slang. 

In welcoming new users to Decentraland it’s essential to not only streamline onboarding, but also to guide them to fun and engaging content. This year the Foundation will invest in producing and developing gamified experiences, events, and new mechanics that will keep new users coming back time and again.

Topping off the foundational work being done on the platform and new user experience, growing and supporting the Decentraland Community—the soul of the project—is fundamental to its success. Throughout the year, Foundation teams will nurture in-person community meetups, participate in key industry conferences, and continue to spread awareness of Decentraland. A new version of our virtual social world is coming and everyone’s invited to jump in and explore like never before!

The new Decentraland Client envisions a virtual world where horizons stretch infinitely, offering panoramic views of Decentraland's vast landscape. Even parcels without content deployed will pulsate with life, featuring a procedural terrain that reacts to changing weather conditions. This new environmental rendering will even extend to the virtual world's boundaries; if you walk to the edge of Genesis City, you’ll find yourself atop a towering cliff looking out over the ocean.

In its final form, the new Client will be capable of quickly rendering hundreds of avatars simultaneously, creating a bustling, densely populated virtual space. Avatars will interact seamlessly with the environment, advanced locomotion capabilities will allow them to adapt their movements to the terrain and engage in activities like sliding, climbing, swimming, and more.

These technological advancements require sophisticated engineering to ensure stellar performance while preserving the essence of a live, vibrant, open world. As a byproduct of these efforts, the Decentraland Foundation is drafting a new updated white paper to complement the project’s original white paper, published in 2017. This document will serve as valuable training material to understand Decentraland's infrastructure, foster constructive conversations among contributors, and set the stage for the next era of Decentraland.

An alpha version of the new Desktop Client is expected to be ready for launch by mid-2024. From that point, it will receive continuous improvements while being integrated with development tools throughout the year. The current Web Client will be maintained throughout 2024 without major updates.

In 2024, Foundation teams across departments will focus on eliminating barriers to joining Decentraland, ensuring it becomes more accessible and welcoming for all.

Imagine a platform that welcomes users unfamiliar with the crypto ecosystem; with just your standard social profiles, you can jump into Decentraland and make your account—no digital wallet creation necessary, it's all handled for you behind the scenes. A variety of Web3 communities are also welcomed with open arms. Users can make purchases in the Marketplace using any token, and multichain support tools will be available.

Language accessibility is another focus. While English is the official language of the platform, the Decentraland Client and documentation should be available in multiple languages. Additionally, creation in Decentraland should be available to more than those familiar with programming. Low-code and no-code creator tools should be robust and user-friendly, encouraging anyone to try their hand at publishing their creations in Decentraland.

2024 will see Genesis Plaza, the spawning point for new users, reworked into a gamified experience. This engaging welcome will not only teach new users the basic mechanics of the platform but also narrate the different aspects of Decentraland’s ecosystem through an enjoyable storyline before they set off to explore the world.

The Decentraland Foundation will continue producing key-events throughout the year, with 2024’s forecast focusing on the main themes of Wellness, Art, Gaming, Fashion, and Music. Following the success of 2023’s Music Festival, each of the events will follow the same format, being built around games and experiences created by the community through open calls, inviting both the community and general public to get more involved in the platform’s tentpole events.

Another initiative for 2024 is the introduction of a reward system in Decentraland. This will encourage users to explore and engage with the virtual world, offering rewards and progression based on their activities. Such a system not only promotes exploration but also creates a sense of achievement, enticing users to return and engage regularly. This approach is vital for sustaining user interest and fostering a vibrant, active community.

Ensuring the continued growth and vibrancy of the Decentraland community is essential for the virtual world to thrive. This year, the Foundation will continue to support initiatives that bring new users to the platform. A community growth project that has recently kicked off is the Decentraland Ambassador Program, which came about thanks to a DAO grant. Already, DCL Ambassadors around the world are planning local events, so keep an eye out for more news soon!

With the goal of spreading awareness of Decentraland, the Foundation plans to attend more in-person and online events in 2024, focusing on the areas of Gaming (e.g. GDC), Tech (e.g. The Next Web), and Crypto/Web3 (e.g. EthCC). Attending in-person events with targeted interests will provide the opportunity to reach a wider and more diverse audience that may not have heard about Decentraland yet, but may be interested.

Finally, a significant milestone for Decentraland and the Foundation in 2024 will be the inaugural IRL Decentraland Community Summit that will take place in Argentina, the birthplace of Decentraland, this May. The Summit aims to foster social connections, provide learning opportunities through community and Foundation presentations, and enable direct feedback collection from the community while celebrating how far Decentraland and its community have come. The event will also see the first alpha sneak peek of the new Desktop Client!

In 2023, the Foundation took on the Shape Up methodology approach to organize their product development strategy and it was found to be very effective, allowing production teams to ship updates quickly and learn rapidly from each iteration while responding swiftly to changing user needs and market trends. This strategy will continue to guide the Foundation’s work in 2024 as they work towards releasing a powerful and performant new Desktop Client.

While developing the new client will be the primary focus of Foundation product teams this year, other projects that improve and enrich the platform may be taken on as time and goals allow. New initiatives are decided on by taking into account: qualitative user feedback, data analysis, technical feasibility & effort, market trends & innovations, and community signal from Decentraland’s Canny account. 

If you want to stay up to date with what the Foundation is working on and what’s coming to Decentraland next, make sure to attend their bi-monthly Community All Hands sessions, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, and follow Decentraland on Twitter or Discord. Following those channels you’ll be the first to learn about new features and will get quarterly reports delivered right to your inbox so you don’t miss a thing! 

2024 is set to be a pivotal year for Decentraland, filled with innovation, collaboration, and growth. The Foundation is committed to bringing about the best version of Decentraland by forging the foundations that will support its future development. Their primary goal in 2024 will be the release of a powerful, new Desktop Client. In tandem, Foundation teams will work on streamlining the onboarding experience to be more accessible to all new users, investing in the creation of engaging content, and spreading awareness of Decentraland to help grow the vibrant community at its core.

This next step for Decentraland is more than a new chapter; it's an invitation to every member of the community to get involved in shaping Decentraland’s exciting future. The possibilities are endless—this year, let's create, explore, and cultivate the unique decentralized world that is Decentraland together!