2026 Update - the future, trackmaking and free rider at large
hi! this is going to serve as a sort of reflection on my own activity the last few years, my activity in 2025, and what is realistic from me in the future. the tl;dr is
youll see less of me around for the next few years, but i wont be gone entirely!
ive been playing this game a long arse time now - almost 12-years - where ive pretty consistently been one of the most active players on both the database (some 37,000 tracks completed and 60+ tracks made) and forums (roughly 15,000 likes and 3260 messages - almost 1% of all forum messages to date!). other than a significant step back in 2018 to complete high school, ive always been around in some capacity on one platform or another. since returning in 2019, ive posted on here some 600 times, finished 6 tracks (5 of those being features, amounting to 3590kb), got VIP, contributed to feat discussions, ran shep's memorial fundraiser (probably my personal favourite thing to ever happen on this site), ran or co-ran a couple contests, judged a few more contests, hosted the frhd awards, hosted the wall of fames and probably even more that i cant think of off the top of my head. all this to say, ive been quite busy on here! probably more than when i was a kid, even. this was sustainable due to my line of work (wfh) and university giving me almost 6 months off each year. im now out of university, and am about to embark on a new, exciting journey in 2026. im very happy for the future, but - as of about a week or two from now - i will no longer have the spare time i have had the last 6 years, and it is rather unlikely that will change at any point in the next 4 years minimum (if at all). of course, ill have time for hobbies, but im at a point now with free rider where i feel very satisfied. ive conquered every mountain ive set myself, ive done all there is to do as a trackmaker in this game (trending track, campaign track, featured track, track of the year), and i think at some point it's healthy to move on. as much as i love this game and community, the truth is it does not really love us back. the effort and passion and time put into this hobby is logically served better elsewhere, and emotionally i want to explore other creative mediums as well - video, painting, cooking, music etc. i think the time is perfect for me to start moving on, where im really happy overall with my output in this game and community and with what i will leave behind.
i know this sounds a hell of a lot like an "i quit" post, but i understand very well how hard it is to quit this game (mR..A and eli can speak to that, i imagine!). but ive made some real, long and lasting friendships on this game (you all know who you are) that make it almost impossible to simply quit, so it's not going to look like it did in 2018 when i basically up and left without a word for 6+ months at a time. i also am not super far away from finishing 2 more collabs, which are sitting on my pc rn at about 400kb and 250kb respectively, and i do want to finish those at some point in time. rather, i think this is more a post to set realistic boundaries for myself going forward, and to set expectations for everyone here as well.
i think the last thing i want to achieve on this game is 10 features, right now i have 8. the two collabs would round that out perfectly, so in the next 4 years i think i can finish those off. a very small part of me wants to finish a second AMBITION-sized track i have started (
ithring), but i can make no promises there. if it ever sees the light of day as a finished piece, it will be because every second was a joy to make, and not a grind in the slightest. trackmaking is difficult, time-consuming, tedious and increasingly not relaxing for me. progress is painstakingly slow and although little compares to the highs of releasing a track and watching people play and enjoy it, the trade off is not worth it for me anymore.
on the forums, ill be logging in less and posting much less, and certainly i have no intentions to host or run contests etc anymore. frankly it is now just frustrating for me rather than rewarding, and ive had my fill. i will continue to vote in feat discussions and chip in with CC where i want to, but more than that i cannot make any promises. i do enjoy giving structured CC to people, but it fills the same part of my head as work emails do, and i am uninterested in having the forums feel like a second teams or slack page. informal CC is probably the most likely contributions ill give, ie if i see a cool WIP pic on discord or on here and i feel motivated to fire off a quick message.
as for discord i think i will either entirely leave the main discord or mute everything except the trackmaking tab. it is a cesspit there and the main contributors, ironically, dont play the game or use this forum much. it's really bad and id love for the mods to clean house of the idiots, and make it usable/readable again. ill probably still be quite active on discord though, it's an easy time killer on my commute (s/o the oil).
so all in all im not really going anywhere (i think), im just taking a necessary (big) step back. it's been a difficult, rewarding, life-altering time on free rider hd, and ive learnt so much about myself, art and many other things while playing. this is the beginning of the end of Volund, and given im content rather than melancholic, nostalgic and sad, it is absolutely the right time. having a relatively productive 2025 certainly helped, where i collabed with loge on 10k sqm (play this track it's one of the best rides on free rider) and finally finished a track entitled "Platinum Version" after all these years. on jan 21, 2016, i uploaded mage's lair, my first feature. since then i have released another 7 feat-level tracks, and while 8 big tracks from 9 years isnt ideal, it is certainly better than 6/9! hopefully one day i can get to 10, but we'll see what happens.
if youve read this far, thank you! ill see you all around. need to update my gallery at some point while pics still work. fudge kano till the day i die
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