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Online fitness platform Zwift has announced a number of additions to Zwift that will make the platform more engaging and fun for both existing and new users.
To celebrate the start of Zwift season, Zwift’s product design team has shared its product roadmap leading up to the end of 2022. Improvements to in-game content discovery, new training features, more routes, improved event capabilities, and increased on-demand services are some of the highlights for this indoor cycling season.
Zwift vice president of content, Mark Cote said: “Making Zwift more simple is one of the biggest opportunities for our expanding audience. We’re continually looking at new ways to make Zwift more accessible, easier to use, and more fun – whether you’re new to the platform or have been here for years.
“With so many different ways to Zwift, this year we’ve focused on building out the tools that empower our community to create their own Zwift experience. We have improved in-game discovery, enhanced the toolsets of Zwift Clubs and also adding to our library of 24-7 on-demand content.
“We believe our experiences this season will help make Zwift a more engaging and personalized experience for members around the world.”
Improvements to the home screen UI will make it easier to discover and learn more about Zwift’s library of workouts and training plans. Zwifters will be able to search by workout duration and perceived effort, and will be able to learn more about each individual workout through improved graphic detail.
PacePartners is set to graduate from the FutureWorks test programme. PacePartners are prominently featured on the home screen, and give Zwifters the ability to join a group ride for a social workout at a variety of paces. Now evolving from the success of PacePartners is Zwift’s all-new HoloReplay feature.
This feature will launch under the FutureWorks test programme and will allow Zwifters to compete against a ghost of their previous personal records.
Route Based Workouts provide an alternative to FTP-based training, providing a more accessible pathway into structured training on the platform. They use Zwift’s terrain and marked segments to create a structured workout plan, allowing for a mix of different efforts.
This new feature will appear in the Zwift Academy Road programme this year before expanding with more workout plans later this season.
Racing on Zwift has always been a popular way to train, and this year’s calendar and other details can be found on a new dedicated racing website.
New for this season is ZRacing, a thematic race series for each month of the year. ZRacing delivers always-on, easy-to-access competition. A new stage will run each week, and those taking part will be able to earn a monthly badge.
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Zwift will also be the host platform for the 2023 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships. Maintaining the same accessible pathway as in 2022, Zwift will open a qualification pathway to the 2023 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships.
In addition, Zwift has also been rolling out auto-categorisation to make Zwift racing fairer. Auto categorisation ensures Zwifters are matched against riders of similar abilities, based on their most recent ride data captured in the platform.
Zwift’s roads are ever-expanding and Makuri Islands will expand in November with roads, gravel, and dirt surfaces winding through the Urukazi map.
