A World on the Move: A New Chapter for Terminals and Landmarks

Your city already has residents. Soon, where they travel and what they visit will matter.

This is a first look at a feature we’re developing for after Troves launches. It will give residents and Uppies dynamic daily journeys, turn terminals and landmarks into active parts of those journeys, and create concrete new benefits for the players who own them.

Share this preview with a friend who helped you build your neighborhood, or someone you’d love to welcome into it. The next chapter is more exciting when we build the community together.

From Residents to Daily Journeys

Residents already connect desirable neighborhoods with a population living across Upland’s cities, as reflected in the Census Score. The next step is to set that population in motion. Planned simulated travel will change from day to day, reflecting where residents and Uppies are traveling from and to.

Players will be able to open a screen and see where residents are traveling and which destinations they visit. That view will make the rhythm of the world easier to understand: which cities are sending travelers, which connections are busy, and which destinations are drawing attention.

Terminals and landmarks have different jobs in that movement. Bus, airport, and train terminals connect travel between cities. Landmarks attract visits. Player activity, including travel through terminals, can help boost that travel, while resident journeys turn landmarks into destinations within a living daily network.

Why Landmark and Terminal Ownership Matters

Landmark owners benefit by attracting visitors. The more residents and Uppies visit your landmark, the more Troves will automatically accumulate there for you. This gives landmark ownership a new purpose. A landmark is no longer just part of the skyline; it’s a hub of attraction that generates rewards based on the activity it draws.

And there’s more on the horizon. Future Destination Structures will give players new ways to increase the attraction of their cities and neighborhoods, drawing more residents and Uppies to the places they build. These structures will create new opportunities for communities to work together to make their neighborhoods more desirable destinations. We’ll have much more to share about Destination Structures as development progresses.

Terminal owners benefit from the traffic moving through their connections. Alongside the rewards terminals already earn from player travel, increased resident and Uppie traffic will mean more Troves accumulating at their terminals for owners to collect.

Automation will make collecting those Troves even easier. There will be different paths to automating Trove collection across Upland. For example, players will eventually be able to employ an Uppie at a Service Structure or assign an Uppie to a property to automate Trove collection. Landmarks and terminals will have a similar path to automation, allowing owners to automatically collect the Troves their locations generate. We’ll share more about these systems and their requirements as we get closer to launch.

Terminals and landmarks play different but connected roles. Terminals move travelers between cities, while landmarks give them a reason to visit. Desirable neighborhoods support resident populations, residents take daily journeys through terminals, and landmarks attract visitors. Together, these systems create a living network where the places players own and the communities they build directly influence the rewards they can earn.

Building a More Connected Upland

This is only the beginning of the destination story. Future structures, which will be announced separately, are planned to help players build up the attraction of their cities and neighborhoods, make landmarks even more desirable destinations, and turn terminals into busier connections. Landmarks are already attractions in this system; these future structures will give communities more ways to strengthen the places around them.

Simulated travel and automation also lay groundwork for an Upland where more systems connect over time, including future gameplay such as trade routes and fishing. Those mechanics are not part of this preview, but the movement of residents and Uppies can help make the world around them feel more alive.

This remains a development preview. Simulated travel and automated Trove accumulation for terminals and landmarks are planned for after the Troves launch, not alongside it, and no release date is being announced today. We’ll share more mechanics and details as development progresses.

Upland is a world we keep building together. Send this preview to an old Upland friend and invite them back into the conversation. Bring a new friend along, show them your neighborhood, and tell them what you’re excited to build next.

More visitors. More traffic. More rewards to collect from the places you own.