Back in 2005, we launched Webkinz as one of the first fully featured Flash web sites. Flash wasn’t just an animated element, or a game embedded in the page, it WAS the game. We had created a virtual world for you and your pet to immerse into… in a browser.
For 15 years players went daily to webkinz.com to hit that big “Log In” button to join their pets in having hours of fun.
With the discontinuing of Flash at the end of 2020, Webkinz World’s days as a browser destination also came to an end. Our developers were able to keep Webkinz World alive with the fully featured Webkinz application on PC and Mac, and the mobile versions on iOS and Android, but internally we always had the idea that one day we could return to browsers like Chrome and Safari and have our game playable anywhere, on any device.
Today, on the 20th Anniversary of our launch, we are proud to announce that Webkinz Classic will be returning to browsers later this year.
We have had one goal with this project – get everything working, particularly those features that mobile players currently don’t have access to, like challenges, the Curio Shop, trading, and the Employment Office. And of course, we had to get all the games running – from our earliest games like Pumpkin Patch Protector, to favorites like Cash Cow and Jumbleberry Fields.
And like the downloadable app and the mobile app, all this works with your existing data. Playing in a browser will just be another way to play!
Here is your first look at the game in action (the URL has been intentionally hidden):
Employment Office – PC, Chrome
Arcade – PC, Chrome
Curio Shop – iPad, Safari (we will be addressing the scaling issues)
Now while we’ve come a very long way, we still have a lot of work to do. We are still working on features and once those are complete, we will have a long bug testing and fixing phase. We are aiming for an early Q4 release for everyone to enjoy.
We are also discussing beta events where players will be able to try out what we have (knowing that there will be bugs). We will provide more details on these in the coming months.
Finally, and I’m sure that this will be music to many players ears, our overall goal is to get Webkinz Classic to a point where we can begin developing all new features and finally fix features that have been missing for too long.
We appreciate every fan who has enjoyed our plush and our virtual world over the past 20 years and this project is just one of the many steps that we will be taking to ensure that the next 20 years provides even more joy and fun to all our players, new and old alike.
- Your furry friends in Webkinz World
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I am very happy about this. It secures Webkinz Classic’s legacy moving forward. I wish we could return to the game as it was when I was a kid, before the pet requests and loss of certain features, including DiceKinz which I miss very much still LOL Truly Vintage!
Being able to sell items in bulk like on Next would be welcomed, if possible. What I wouldn’t give to be able to zoom in and out of the map and get a room count (yes, I have too many rooms by now to completely get an exact count without it taking days to do, which I don’t have time for, my best guess is around 500 to 600)
MY CHILDHOOD IS SO BACK!! I’d actually cry if the game gets the retired early 2010s features (party packs, old UI, Mazin’ Hamsters, etc.) to come back <333
Does this include the potential for bug fixes for the already existing game? There is the mention of all new features and features that have been missing, but what about things with partial functionality? Are these expected to be on the agenda as well? Am excited for the potential beta events, whatever details those may entail. Very nice news for the 20th anniversary
While you’re working on stuff, PLEASE create a way to delete the extra rooms we no longer want. I have so many small and medium rooms off to the side of my room map that I can’t get rid of. Let us sell them for 5 kinzcash or something small just to get rid of them. Thanks!
Oh my gosh, yes! That’s probably the main thing I’m hoping for. (Second would probably be fixing pet info like name and gender.) I don’t want to get my hopes up too high because I’m sure it’s been a huge process to get to a point where these changes would be possible. But I can’t help but get excited and hopeful.
Oh, yes. Please let us sell or even just delete rooms. I bought small rooms early on because that’s all I could afford. Now I use them as place holders so my other rooms don’t move around when I’m changing a room’s location. :)
Please, PLEASE make an attempt at enabling the old Scrapbook layout for the viewing of pets. The scrolling is so overwhelming and the older script would be so much better and put less stress on UI.
I’m so excited to be able to play on the web again! Thank you all so much for working to make this possible for us
This is soooooo exiting!!! And I kind of have a few questions about this. Will the party packs come back? Will we be able to visit other people’s homes? I would love to see everyone else’s rooms. And will you bring back any other old features? I didn’t play Webkinz at the time when Mazin Hamsters existed and any other old games like the logout carnival so it would be nice to be able to play those games. :)
This is AWESOME!!! Thank you for continuing to support Classic – I’ve been playing for 19 years and still love Webkinz Classic SO MUCH.
Incredible news!!! Your hard work, and dedication to Webkinz Classic is very much appreciated by all of the players new and old !!!! Thank you!!
This is fantastic news! I’m looking forward to being able to play the browser version, and perhaps with some of the things we’ve been missing over the years. Great news for Webkinz’ 20th anniversary!