MapleStory Universe’s winter update adds 96,280 players and boosts transactions 171%
One of the big beasts of blockchain gaming, Nexpace has revealed positive news about growth in MapleStory Universe.
This was triggered by the game’s Winter Update, which dropped in mid-December 2025. It introduced new content and other activations that ran for two months into February 2026.
These were designed to both attract new players and also re-engage with existing players who had churned out of the game.
And in this, the Winter Update was successful. The game saw over 96,000 new players and over 34,000 lapsed players returning, for a combined total of 130,607 ‘new’ sign-ups during the period.
This will have taken lifetime registered accounts to over 2 million.
Perhaps more important, however, was the impact of this new content on the game’s most committed players. Nexpace now claims that 43% of the audience is logged into MapleStory Universe for more than nine hours a day, up from 35% before the update went live.
Even noting that the claim concerns how long players are logged in, rather than actively playing, this remains a strong engagement metric.
Another concrete sign of engagement comes from the game’s economy. The total number of transactions rose 171% between November 2025 and February 2026. The trading volume of the game’s NESO currency also exploded, up 400%.
However, because its value is pegged to that of the NXPC token, which has declined 44% since the update went live, the increase in trading value is more like 180%.
Nexpace also says that since 5th February, token inflows into MapleStory Universe have become positive for the first time, something it hopes to reinforce by enabling users to mint their characters’ nicknames as NFTs. These can then be traded amongst players, potentially further driving in-game economic activity.
“The winter update delivered measurable increases in both user participation and ecosystem activity. Observing this level of engagement following a single content update reinforces our view that demand for sustainable, utility-driven on-chain gaming experiences continues to grow,” commented Nexpace CEO Sunyoung Hwang.
“We remain focused on expanding the MapleStory Universe through a steady cadence of meaningful, large-scale updates.”
Find out more at the MapleStory Universe website.
