I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack with another review!

This month’s review is probably going to be a lengthy one, not necessarily because I have loads to say, but because this month felt significantly busier than most. Between multiple updates, events, catalogue changes and community chatter, there’s more to unpack than usual.

As always, these reviews are simply my way of putting into words what I think went well within the hotel, what maybe could have been handled better, and what the overall atmosphere and community sentiment has looked like throughout the month.

So with that said… let’s get into it!

Bobs Fishing Palooza!

Firstly, I’ll start by saying that I personally didn’t compete in the Palooza this time around,  and honestly, that purely boiled down to time constraints on my end rather than a lack of interest.

The Fishing Palooza stretched across all three hotels and, from what I saw, it was a genuinely successful event overall. The team offered a solid variety of prizes, which helped keep participation levels high throughout the duration of the derby. Fishing rooms remained consistently busy during event periods and there was a noticeable buzz around the community whenever rounds were active.

One thing I particularly liked was how the event encouraged activity across multiple hotels rather than keeping things isolated. It gave the whole thing a larger scale feel and made it seem more community-driven overall.

A very strong start to the month from Bob and the team 😊

Sakura Garden Event comes to an end

Overall, the Sakura Garden event was a success, despite my personal disdain for it aesthetically, but that just boils down to preference more than anything else.

Seasonal events naturally come and go, so it was always expected that we wouldn’t be growing Sakura trees forever, much like what happened previously with the autumnal tree events. The event itself gave players something long-term to work toward and many players clearly enjoyed collecting and progressing through it.

I do think there’s one fair critique to be made here, however.

I feel like the ending of the event should have been announced at least a week in advance. Giving players a proper warning period would have allowed people to fully lock in, use up remaining resources, and obtain the final rewards they were aiming for before the event disappeared. Technically, the event ended before the article confirming it had even been posted, which understandably caught a few players off guard.

That said, I wouldn’t call it some catastrophic ball-drop or event-ruining mistake, more just a communication issue that could easily be improved for future seasonal events.

Alhambra landed in the hotel!

I’m just going to say it plainly:

I absolutely loathe this line.

Even after the recolours were later introduced, alongside the Funky Friday additions, I still struggle massively with it aesthetically. For me, the line is simply far too over-detailed and over-patterned. When multiple pieces are combined in a room, it often just visually blends into what I can only describe as “mud”.

Now, with that said, the additional recolours did help tremendously. They broke up the visual overload a bit and made the line far more workable than it initially was. From community chatter, those recolours were very warmly received, and honestly, I completely understand why. Along side this, we also got some nice trophies!

What still surprises me though is just how overwhelmingly popular the line seems to be. I genuinely don’t think I’ll ever fully understand the hype around it, but hey, different strokes for different folks.

At the end of the day, it’s clearly a much-loved line by a large portion of the community, and not every release is going to cater to my own tastes specifically.

Country Furni leaving the catalogue

One thing Origins players consistently appreciate is transparency, and I think the Origins team handled this situation relatively well overall.

For quite a while, many players speculated that the Country line might remain permanently within the catalogue. The reasoning honestly made sense too, the line adds a lot of flavour and versatility to room building. Items such as the grass patches, mud tiles, ditch corners and other natural pieces are incredibly useful for creating realism and detail within rooms.

Because of that, there was hope within the community that Country might become one of those “semi-permanent” utility lines.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, and the Origins team officially announced its departure from the catalogue.

It is what it is!

That said, I do hope that in the future, some furniture lines continue to remain permanently available within the catalogue, particularly utility-heavy lines that contribute heavily to room creativity and design flexibility. Executive remaining permanent, for example, was a genuinely great decision and one I think most players appreciated.

Building tools and Creative launches!

This is probably one of the biggest building-related updates Origins has received so far.

The introduction of Creative completely changes the entry point for room building within the hotel. Origins builders relied heavily on tricks, patience, a lot of trial and error to make impressive rooms work.

With these new features, Building has become significantly more accessible to the community.

Giving every player access to free Creative furni directly from the catalogue is genuinely a good move in my opinion. Newer players can simply jump in and start creating immediately or even testing before they buy. I was extremely happy to see that some of the Functional furni was also included in this as the furni itself is on the pricier side and you can quickly waste credits on items that don’t work for a game.

A lot of players have creative ideas but previously lacked the resources to execute them. This update removes a massive barrier to entry while still preserving the value of tradeable and collectible furni, since Creative items can’t be sold or traded.

The increased build height and void placement changes are also massive for advanced builders. Being able to build outside traditional room boundaries opens an entirely different level of creativity and room presentation that Origins hasn’t seen before.

Overall, this was an excellent update and room building competitions are only going to become more impressive.

Rares

Roman Pillar – Released  05/05/2026

I personally don’t like pillars outside of a white pillar, this was whatever to me.

Jinn Lamp – Released 12/06/2026

Yeah, I’ll take it. Probably one of the nicer Amberlamps we have had!

Bazaar Screen & Marquee – Released 19/05/2026

Not for me but they have their fans, importantly in line with the campaign.

Gold Tiger – Released 26/05/2026

Now I know many people don’t like it when Nellys are re-imagined but anything re-imagined in origins thus for based from the Nellys is far superior than what Habbo.com have in my opinion. Even if this Tiger is bagpus.

Funky Friday

Alhambra Teleporter – Released 08/05/2026

What a GREAT re-imagined furni from the HC line, ball knocked out the park.

Regal Alhambra Furni – Released 15/05/2026

As I have stated in the review, this was a really welcomed additional to bring a little more colour to the line. I enjoyed it, despite not liking the line itself.

Quackzar the Genie – Release 22/05/2026

This, for me is the best Funky Friday duck ever released. SUBLIME.

Unknown Funky Friday – Pending 27/05/2026
Article will be updated with this

Communitea challenge!

What do you mean we’ve had two community challenges back-to-back?

This time players were tasked with drinking a combined total of 17k cups of tea. At the point of writing this, we still aren’t even close to completing challenge number three, so those that are reading this, DRINK UP.

Honestly though, I don’t mind the slower pace. It’s actually quite nice having a community challenge that doesn’t end within a day or two of launching. Most of the previous ones have been absolutely steamrolled almost immediately, whereas this one has actually lasted long enough for people to participate properly over time.

The only real criticism I have is the confusion surrounding what counted towards the challenge.

A lot of players, myself included initially, assumed the Alhambra Tea Maker would count because… well… it literally gives you tea. Turns out it only counted if the tea came from either a Samovar or Japanese Tea Dispenser. Since the Alhambra machine serves it in a mug instead of a cup, it apparently didn’t contribute.

Granted, we wouldn’t be much higher on the tea drinking scale even if we did know but I drank a lot of Alhambra Tea on day one!

Room Competition revamp

Honestly, this was desperately needed.

Room competitions have always been one of the strongest parts of Origins and most enjoyed by participants (when it isn’t half arsed). Some genuinely incredible rooms have come out of these competitions over the months, and you can tell a lot of players put ridiculous amounts of time into their builds. However, alongside that, the issues surrounding competitions have also become increasingly obvious recently.

Fake screenshots copied rooms and alt accounts had started becoming a genuine issue. It stopped feeling entirely competitive and it felt from staff side it was plucking rooms out of a hat to include within the top twenty. All problematic for a game built on community.

So overall, I think the changes being introduced are mostly positive.

The biggest change, of course, is competitions now being restricted to Habbo Club members only. I know this one will divide opinion heavily because there absolutely are talented non-HC builders within the community. However, if you know you have a great idea and you can execute it well – then it’s worth the risk of getting one-month Habbo Club surely?

That said, I do understand the reasoning behind it.

The new in-game submission system though? That is probably the best competition-related change Origins has made so far.

Submitting directly through the client instantly removes so many of the issues people had with the previous system. Even better, when the result is live – the rooms regardless of if the owners pick the room furniture up, the rooms will remain visitable to everyone. Completely untouched to time!

Being able to have judges physically enter and inspect rooms themselves is just a far cleaner system overall and honestly feels like something that should’ve existed from the start.

The added visibility on whether entries have been accepted or rejected is also a genuinely nice addition. Small thing, but helpful.

Overall, while some people won’t agree with every single change, I think the competition system is in a far healthier place moving forward than it was previously.

Origins Competitions

Now onto the actual competition itself.

The first official competition using these new systems was the Alhambra Palace competition, where players were tasked with building grand palace-themed rooms using the newly released Alhambra furni line alongside any complementary furni they wanted.

I’ll be honest, as I mentioned earlier in the review, I still personally dislike the Alhambra line quite a lot aesthetically. I find it extremely over-patterned and difficult to make cohesive-looking rooms with.

However, I will say this competition showcased the line far better than I anticipated.

Some players managed to create genuinely impressive palace builds using the furni in ways I honestly didn’t expect.

This was also probably the perfect competition to launch alongside the Creative changes because it allowed builders to fully experiment with scale properly. Large sweeping palace rooms simply wouldn’t have been nearly as achievable previously.

Overall, despite me still not liking the Alhambra line itself very much, the competition was a solid showcase of both the new building systems and what Origins builders are capable of when given more freedom.

We then had a second room competition announced, while I’d rather have one room building competition and something else creative, the fact we are getting two competitions in the month is a win for players.

Community Poll

The community poll asking whether Profiles should permanently remain within Origins ended with an overwhelming yes vote, comfortably clearing the required threshold with 87.4% approval overall.

I think that was expected.

The profiles themselves are very cute and based on feedback the UI was updated to suit origins a little more. When the polls launched, players flagged that there just isn’t generally a need to open anyone else’s profile currently. With this feedback, badges now appear within the profile so you can show off your collection and when the user registered in Habbo Origins.

Personally, I think Profiles are one of the better “modern” additions Origins has introduced because they still feel relatively in-line with the game itself rather than completely changing its identity.

Overall, I think this was the correct decision and clearly the majority of the community agreed.

Guest room gaming arrives

This was probably one of the more unexpectedly interesting updates this month.

Origins introduced a brand-new Instant Games system allowing players to queue directly into multiplayer games without needing to manually search around the navigator for active rooms. Currently, the system supports Chess, Battleships, Tic Tac Toe, Wobble Squabble, Battle Ball and a new addition, Backgammon.

I think this update has a lot of potential overall, especially for newer or quieter players.

I guess it can be frustrating, for anyone that liked these games to send out console messages or ask people in rooms if they want to come and play a game of battleships with them (unless your Everton).

Being able to jump into a game quickly without spending 15 minutes trying to find someone who is interested in playing one of the games is a massive improvement. Especially, as you play these games in the guest room you are in – unless obviously it’s battle ball or wobble squabble.

I also think this system will probably help Daily Challenges significantly because players can access active games faster rather than waiting around hoping rooms fill naturally.

The Backgammon addition is also just genuinely cool from a historical perspective. Restoring and finally implementing something that was originally planned decades ago is the sort of niche Origins detail that long-time players tend to appreciate quite a lot.

New User Onboarding Update

Fresh out the box users will not longer be greeted with Hotel View when they first enter the game. They will enter a pre-made room which displays creative furni.

Players are then greeted by Jeff and Meg the tutorial bots to welcome them into the hotel which will hopefully provide newbies with a little bit of guidance from the beginning!

Established players, I think were more confused than anything on what was happening, but I can see the benefit.

Although, I will say there’s a lot of confusion from new people about when they pick up the furni – it’s disappeared. It could be clarified for them a little better maybe unless the goal is that they ask for help immediately, which I don’t think is a good look to think the game isn’t working as intended until clarity has been given.

Gardening updates AND sprinklers

Sprinklers have officially arrived in Origins, THANK HEAVENS. After spending countless hours manually watering endless rows of plants, the community have been on their knees for this.

Two versions were introduced to origins, one purchased with fruit tokens and the other through catalogue.

The regular sprinkler is clearly aimed more towards casual or smaller-scale gardeners who are chipping away at the skill, while the luxury version feels designed to larger plant grows without having to dip out of conversation to water your plants. Being able to keep crops watered while rooms are empty or needing to log off for a period is also genuinely massive for anyone heavily invested in gardening progression.

Now all we need is a “Harvest All” button. Please!!!!!!

While watering was one of the more tedious parts of gardening, harvesting entire farms tile-by-tile still feels like a punishment sometimes, especially for larger harvests. If sprinklers are the first major step toward improving farming quality-of-life, then hopefully harvesting eventually gets similar treatment too.

The introduction of token caps was probably the more controversial part of the update though.

I understand the reasoning behind it completely, particularly for Fishing. When some players are sitting on a ridiculous number of tokens, it becomes almost impossible to introduce meaningful new shop rewards because everything just gets instantly purchased within seconds of release.

From a balancing perspective, the cap makes sense.

I also think keeping existing balances untouched was the correct decision because removing previously earned progress would’ve gone down terribly with the community.

Another win for the month that us origins players will gladly take.

Event Creators

After the quieter period we saw last month, this month definitely felt much busier overall.

I honestly can’t say too much regarding the EC side of things because, simply put, it seems to be working well currently. Events picked back up again, activity levels felt on level Habbo’s were used to since the programme launched and the hotel generally had far more going on.

Naturally though, activity will always fluctuate from month to month. Some periods are packed with games and events constantly running, while other months feel noticeably slower. However, the EC members are players, with lives outside of the hotel and plans outside of the game. They provide us with solid-content on a week-to-week basis so not every month needs to be heavy on the EC front.

Noco

Noco arrived in the hotel as expected and immediately caused absolute chaos after bringing an Anniversary Smoke with him.

For context, the Anniversary Smokes were originally released via balloons during Origins’ 1st Anniversary event and were understood by players to be a one-time release that would never return. The item Noco was supposed to bring was the Sand Laser Gate, but somewhere along the line that was missed prior to Noco arriving in the hotel.

Naturally, this caused a major uproar within the community.

Honestly, I do understand why people were upset. When items are presented as exclusive or seemingly one-time releases, players naturally expect that to remain the case.

That said, I also think the reaction became far bigger than it probably needed to be, specifically over a smoke and laser-gate.

At the end of the day, it was very obviously a mistake rather than some intentional attempt to mislead players but let’s end this section here.

Conclusion

Overall, this month honestly felt like one of the stronger months Origins has had in quite a while. Not necessarily because every single update was flawless, but because there was consistently something happening throughout the month.

There was also a very healthy mix of content overall. We had large-scale events, catalogue updates, community challenges, room competition overhauls, building tools, gardening improvements, game updates and smaller quality-of-life additions all packed into the same period. Compared to some slower months previously, May simply felt far more substantial content-wise.

The standout update for me personally was easily the Creative and building tools release. I genuinely think that update alone is going to permanently change the quality and scale of room building within Origins moving forward. The room competition overhaul also felt long overdue and should hopefully create a much fairer system overall.

Even smaller additions like sprinklers, Instant Games and the onboarding changes show that the team are actively trying to improve weaker parts of the game experience rather than simply relying on catalogue releases alone.

Of course, not everything landed perfectly.

Communication surrounding certain things could still improve slightly, particularly regarding event endings or item confusion. And while I still think the Alhambra line looks like decorative mud personally, I can at least admit the community clearly enjoyed the line far more than I did.

Still though, when looking at the month overall, there’s honestly very little to complain about in the grand scheme of things. The number of updates, improvements and experimentation we received throughout the month made Origins feel like it was moving forward consistently rather than standing still.

Overall score for the month: 9.3/10

Now, don’t raise eyebrows. This is a monthly review, so I am basing my score on the entire month, not the number of players playing the game. Yes, we would absolutely welcome more people within our community but lowering a score based on that isn’t fair. Accessibility for new players in origins can maybe help retain them.