BODY: Cygames has pulled the curtain back on the next chapter of Umamusume: Pretty Derby, and this time the headliner is a mare who made her name far from Japanese soil.
The announcement came during Pakalive TV Vol. 8, the franchise's official livestream and the venue where Cygames traditionally drops its roster news. Front and centre: Win Marilyn, joining the playable Umamusume lineup. The real Win Marilyn was a Screen Hero daughter who spent years knocking on the door of the top tier โ runner-up in the Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks), a repeat winner of the Nikkei Sho โ before finally breaking through overseas in the Longines Hong Kong Vase at Sha Tin. For a roster that leans heavily on legends of the 1980s and 1990s, she is a conspicuously modern addition.
The broadcast also unveiled a new training scenario, ใๆใๅฒ่งฃใ โๅๅผ้งฟๅคง็ฅญโใ (roughly "Friends, Unravelling History โ The Equine Grand Festival"), introducing a new character named Azuma. Training scenarios are the structural backbone of Umamusume's gameplay loop: each one rewrites the stat-building ruleset, the support-card meta and the optimal build paths, which makes a scenario drop a bigger deal for committed players than almost any individual character release. Cygames shared further details across the stream, with the usual cadence of campaign and event information.
The insider take
The timing of that scenario title is hard to read as coincidence. 2026 is the Year of the Horse in the East Asian zodiac โ and not just any horse year, but hinoeuma, the Fire Horse that comes around once every sixty years and carries a thick layer of Japanese superstition with it. The ๅ character sitting in the scenario's subtitle is a deliberate wink, and Cygames has clearly built its 2026 calendar around a once-in-a-lifetime marketing gift. Domestically, Umamusume has settled into a mature phase: no longer the revenue monster of its 2021 launch, but anchored by an unusually devoted core, a steady anime pipeline and genuine crossover credibility with real JRA racing fans. Win Marilyn's inclusion speaks to that second audience โ picking a horse who retired recently enough that fans watched her career unfold in real time.
Originally reported by 4Gamer.net โ ๆๆฐ่จไบ (Japanese).