2026 live ops trends: Templatisation, personalisation and AI

• Casual match-3 and puzzle games have leaned heavily into seasonal albums and updates, says Balancy CEO Pavel Ignatov.
• Midcore and RPG titles typically evolve around weekly PvP seasons, rotating challenge hubs and limited-time modes.
• AI will play a role in helping studios rely more on automation and produce more live ops content.

Live ops is the cornerstone of what makes the world’s top mobile games successful for the long-term. Updates, regular and special events, new features - whether radical or small - keep games fresh.

Live ops approaches have evolved over the years, so to find out what’s in store for 2026, we caught up with Balancy CEO Pavel Ignatov to discuss the latest trends.

The company provides its own live ops platform for building events, monetisation mechanics, calendars and various player-facing features. It’s worked with the likes of Lion Studios, My.Games and Kwalee.

“Publishers increasingly treat live ops as a core operating system, not an occasional add-on,” says Ignatov.

“Instead of building custom solutions for each game, teams now rely heavily on templatisation - developing live ops mechanics once and rolling them out across an entire portfolio with minimal adjustments.

“The model has shifted from ‘build, launch, wait, update months later’ to continuous, data-driven operation. Publishers expect to run seasonal calendars, live events, and real-time tuning loops without client updates, reacting quickly to player behaviour and performance metrics.

“Live ops now directly drives lifetime value and trend responsiveness, with analytics shaping everything from event design to monetisation tweaks. In practice, live ops has become an always-on service layer tightly integrated with product and community feedback, rather than a post-launch support function.”

Elaborating on “templatisation”, Ignatov says this approach will continue to accelerate in 2026. Publishers, he states, are moving away from bespoke, game-specific live ops setups toward reusable systems that can be applied portfolio-wide.

“Traditional static segmentation will increasingly give way to more personalised approaches, with games reacting more dynamically to player behaviour,” explains Ignatov.

AI in live ops

In the year ahead, Ignatov expected hypercasual and hybridcasual titles to adopt richer live ops schedules and mechanics as they compete for longer-term engagement, rather than short retention bursts. Then, of course, there is the question of how AI will be implemented.

“On the production side, AI-assisted development will enable teams to build more advanced tooling and workflows that previously required much larger teams,” he says.

“As a result, studios will rely more on automation and be able to produce more live ops content and variations without significantly increasing headcount.”

Developments in AI tech have grown rapidly over the past couple of years, particularly in 2025, and 2026 looks set to be the same for games. 

Ignatov says AI is currently most commonly used in early-stage ideation, research and data analysis. Some have experimented with AI-assisted content production, which he says often comes with player backlash. Titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Arc Raiders and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 have hit the headlines for their use of AI-generated assets and voice work.

For live ops, Ignatov says that looking ahead, AI’s most impactful role will be on the backend.

“It will increasingly support personalised player experiences, allowing games to react more intelligently to individual behaviour patterns,” he explains. 

“AI will also help studios build more sophisticated live ops tooling - automating optimisation, decision-making and operational workflows - making complex live ops strategies feasible even for smaller teams."

Live ops strategies

When it comes to practical strategies developers can implement into their live ops strategies right now, Ignatov offers a few examples across genres.

For casual match-3 and puzzle games, he says studios have leaned heavily into seasonal albums and daily jackpot style events.

“These mechanics combine light progression with collectible goals, encouraging frequent check-ins without disrupting simple core gameplay loops.”

For midcore and RPG titles, Ignatov says live ops strategies often revolve around weekly PvP seasons, rotating challenge hubs and limited-time modes that act as a “central activity spine”.

“These hubs bundle challenges, currencies, caches, and progression into evolving loops that give players clear short- and mid-term goals.”

He adds: “Across genres, battle passes remain a cornerstone live ops mechanic, providing structured reward paths with daily and weekly tasks that help sustain engagement between major content drops.

“Overall, successful strategies in 2025 aligned live ops formats with genre-specific play rhythms: lightweight, collectible-driven engagement for casual games, and deeper, progression-focused calendars for midcore and RPG titles.”

Asked about how developers can approach event cadence, Ignatov says it’s not about quantity, but about structure and connection. Running isolated events with their own standalone economies no longer works, he claims.

“A healthy setup usually includes a long-term event that runs continuously, supported by a series of mid-term events, which are in turn reinforced by short-term daily activities. 

“When done well, this creates a natural progression funnel: short, accessible activities pull players in, mid-term goals keep them engaged, and long-term events give them a reason to stay invested over time.

“Rather than a linear sequence of events, think of live ops as a pyramid with multiple connections between layers. That structure supports both engagement and retention far better than simply increasing the number of events.”

Live ops balance

At the more extreme end of the spectrum, Finnish developer Supercell has made waves over the past few years with its approach to live games. Brawl Stars and Clash Royale saw substantial updates that led to significant surges in revenue. For the former, Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen previously said he’d “never seen” growth like it for a title years into its lifecycle.

We ask Ignatov what the balancing act is between substantial, potentially game-changing updates versus ensuring a game still feels familiar for players.

“The most successful long-running games don’t reinvent themselves overnight, they evolve,” he says. “In 2025, the games that stayed strong built on what players already loved instead of replacing it outright.

“Clash Royale, for example, preserved its core card-battle and trophy progression while introducing new modes, extending progression systems and refreshing long-term goals so veteran players still felt rewarded. Similarly, Brawl Stars introduced major changes to progression, passes, and economy while keeping its familiar combat and seasonal structure intact.

“The key lesson is respect for player investment. Successful teams roll out changes in stages, clearly communicate why they matter, and avoid invalidating past progress. That balance allows games to feel fresh and modern while keeping their most loyal players engaged.”

Learn more about live ops at Pocket Gamer Connects Summit San Francisco on March 9th.