Future Watopia?

Feature Requests
1

Hey Zwifters!

I wanted to share an expansion concept I’ve been dreaming up that builds on the immersive terrain of Watopia while adding new diversity for climbers, explorers, and flat route fans alike. I’ve even mocked up a map to help visualize how it could look integrated with the current world layout!

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:world_map: Expansion Concepts:

  1. Desert with Pyramid & Coastal Road

Branching off the existing Fuego Flats area, this desert region introduces:
• A mysterious pyramid climb through canyon terrain
• A scenic coastal road linking back into the desert loop
• Terrain mix: flat → climb → coast

Estimated Route Length: ~11–12 miles (18–19 km)

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  1. Southern Coast Extension

Expanding on the 2023 Southern Coast area:
• Continues the coastal highway further east or west
• Includes rolling hills, sea views, and cliffside tunnels

Estimated Extended Loop: ~15–16 miles (24–26 km)

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  1. Western Island Past the Volcano

This new landmass would sit in the unused open area west of the Volcano — the same “blank” region that shows up on Strava heatmaps and third-party Zwift overlays with no roads or ride data. It’s long been a point of speculation among the community, and would be perfect for:
• A volcanic island with lava flats, rainforests, and a lookout climb
• A perimeter loop accessed via bridge or tunnel from the Volcano
• Punchy, technical terrain to contrast existing Watopia roads

Estimated Route: ~7–8.5 miles (11–14 km)

:world_map: This expansion would fill in the recognizable “blank zone” visible on Strava, activating a space that looks prepped for future development.

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  1. Alpe du Zwift Summit Variants

A dream for climbing-focused Zwifters:
• 2–3 new summit roads branching near the Alpe base
• Each with a different style: switchbacks, gravel, even a mountaintop village
• Excellent for events, KOMs, and new route badges

Estimated Combined Routes: ~15–18 miles (24–29 km)

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:globe_showing_europe_africa: Why These Expansions?

Watopia remains Zwift’s most iconic and flexible world. These ideas would:
• Enhance route diversity with flat, rolling, and climbing terrain
• Activate underused parts of the map (like the western Strava “blank zone”)
• Introduce exciting visuals and terrain themes (pyramids, island loops, cliffs)

I’ve included a concept map mock-up that shows how these expansions could fit naturally into Watopia without crowding current routes.

Let me know what you think — and maybe we can get this on Zwift’s radar! :raising_hands:

2

Is this an old post from elsewhere? There is no attached concept map to help, but surely the area ‘West’ of the volcano is taken by Jarvis?

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I was saying for one/a few of the expansions they could extend out to real world Banie.

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The actual article was AI generated because I was like “ Can you please make a mock map of Zwift Watopia if it added these expansions: an extension to the desert with a Eastern Coast Road and a loop around a Pyramid and a climb up it (kind of like how the volcano has a loop and a spiral climb up), maybe some roads in the oasis area more, a West Coast expansion that branches off from the Southern Coast going around Alpe du Zwift and maybe a few climbs up connecting to the Alpe summit loop. Maybe another big island with forests, a huge climb resembling Haleakala in Maui (I might have spelled it wrong), a coast road connecting the from West Coast that goes around the Alpe to Jarvis Island using that same big island with Haleakala. Also extend the Epic KOM bypass to connect to the Southern Coast?” At the time my image generation was up (Chat GPT) so I just asked it to describe it. Just wanted to share future Watopia expansion ideas that could be.

5

And the article was generated by copying a response it gave me when I said “can you put this into a Zwift Fourm Feature Request Post?” And this is what it gave me.

6

Zwift likey has a road map of what expansions are planned for the next few years, they don’t look to the forum or chatgpt for ideas.

7

This is one I’ve been pushing for, to add the alternative routes of the real Alpe d’huez climb plus the nearby climbs such as Sarenne, Galibier and Lautaret, perhaps even Col du Telegraphe.

This would let people do some very big rides and allow some new less boring pretzel routes (plus some huge racing routes).

Along a similar line you could expand the area around Ventop in France with the other nearby climbs, some of them smaller than Ventoux.

In both scenarios you can also create new challenges where people do the three big routes and get special kit as an unlock.

8

About one of my ideas, I do think it’d be cool if there was an extra long climb like 35+ like Haleakala of Muana Kea in Hawaii, maybe a good idea like I was mentioning is to put it in the unused Banie area on Strava in the west and to make it easier just extend AdZ so simply like having pit stops/checkpoints so the current AdZ end could be the first.

9

While that would be cool, I’m not sure that would be the best use of development time at Zwift. I think a very tiny percentage of users would be interested in a 35km climb.

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