Welcome back to The High Life!

We're here again to introduce more of what will make Highstreet: Calamity special. You already found out about Scrap, a medium of exchange that is specific to the areas around the Robotannical Battledome. But what if you want some real spending power? There's another way for you to become a big spender, and it demonstrates how Calamity is one step toward a much larger world for you to explore.

Then, our CEO Travis and Creative Director Kara take a look at the past year and offer a glimpse into what you can expect from the Highstreet team in 2026.

It's an exciting moment. Let's dive in! ⬇️

Psst-psst. Hey there, weary arena fighter. Tired of grinding in the Robotanical Battledome, beating down wave after wave of robots and truffles? And you have to mop up after to pick out the useful bits for that Scrap that Gizmo and Davey are after! It's so undignified for a heroic fighter like you. There has to be a better way to level up your gear.

Well well well, I have just the thing for you. It's called Street Credit, and it's the other mode of payment in The Lobby.

Street Credit is a huge step up from Scrap. This isn't something spun out of trash heaps from the gladiatorial grounds, where any lowly scavenger can walk out with a minor haul. Instead, Street Credit is all about giving you real purchasing power. Not only is it the only way to buy the high-end stuff stocked in Davey's Store—think exclusive armor sets or designer blades—it's also what you'll spend in Highstreet City's Downtown area.

In other words, Scrap is what you farm if you just want to get by, but Street Credit is what the real players stack.

When Highstreet: Calamity launches, it'll be super easy for you to get Street Credit. Just fork over a bit of your Earth Cash, and you'll be all set to add truly rare items to your inventory. As Jaxx Bonanza would say, “Get ready to rumble…” But you'll get to do it in style!

As 2025 comes to a close, Highstreet is heading into 2026 with sharper focus and a stronger foundation. While the broader crypto and gaming landscape cooled off and attention shifted elsewhere, the team used the quieter year to lock in and build. The result was not just incremental progress, but real alignment across the studio, with major systems reworked, production pipelines improved, and new partnerships moving forward, including deeper collaboration with Unity.

On the product side, Highstreet: Calamity made huge strides, moving from early builds into increasingly playable reality. Performance optimizations, upgraded VFX pipelines, functional UI/UX improvements, and stronger sound and combat feedback are all coming together in a way that feels purpose-built for VR. Classes, abilities, and gear are more cohesive, and development milestones like experimenting with Unity DOTS—Data-Oriented Technology Stack—are helping transform what once felt like an ambitious vision into something much more tangible

Looking ahead, the roadmap is now clearly centered on Calamity's release on Meta Quest in 2026. That also means the legacy Highstreet Campus will stop receiving updates in the coming weeks as the team transitions fully into a VR-first direction. Importantly, Highstreet is building backward-compatible systems to ensure all user-owned NFTs, including Homes, Furniture, and other assets, remain supported in future VR builds.

Read the full article on Medium.

That's all for this issue of The High Life.

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