Maxithlon: what changed under the hood

(17:00 25-08-2026)
Over the last few months, Maxithlon has changed much more than what you can immediately see on screen.

A large part of the work has focused on the foundations of the game: the code, the database, the automatic processes that keep everything running every day, the translation system and, more recently, the new interface.

For a game with more than twenty years of history, this was an important step.

A major technical modernization

The goal was never to rebuild Maxithlon from scratch.

Instead, we have been modernizing it gradually while preserving its history, data and game rules.

One of the biggest milestones was the move to PHP 8.5, which is now the only supported runtime for Maxithlon.

This required a broad review of legacy code, old language patterns, warnings, deprecated behaviour and edge cases that had accumulated over many years.

Production logs were also used continuously to identify and fix real issues, making the game more stable and predictable.

Faster and safer automatic processes

A huge amount of Maxithlon runs automatically in the background.

These processes handle races, competitions, rankings, training, injuries, finances, records, series updates, facilities and many other parts of the game.

Over the last months, this system has been heavily improved with better locking, clearer dependencies, structured logging, automatic recovery and more detailed timing of each phase.

We analysed more than 364,000 real executions between March and August 2026, and the improvements are very significant.

Some examples:

* rankings update: from about 2 hours 20 minutes to around 25 minutes on average;
* competitions engine: about 94% faster;
* online users process: about 95% faster;
* pre-race engine: about 87% faster;
* email import: about 70% faster;
* race engine: about 66% faster;
* training process: about 57% faster;
* financial update: almost 50% faster.

These are not laboratory benchmarks, but real production timings.

The benefit is not only speed. Shorter and better-controlled processes are also less likely to overlap, fail midway or leave the game in an inconsistent state.

A better translation system

The multilingual system is also being modernized.

New tools now make it easier to detect missing or unused texts, review new translation entries and manage the translation catalogue in a more structured way.

This keeps the community-driven translation model at the centre of Maxithlon, while preparing the system for future improvements, including possible AI-assisted translation tools.

UX4: the visible part of the change

The infrastructure work is also making it possible to focus more on what players actually see.

The gradual rollout of UX4, the new Maxithlon interface, has already started.

The goal is not to suddenly redesign a game that many players have used for years, but to improve it step by step: clearer layouts, more consistent pages, better usability on smaller screens and shared components across the site.

Why all this work matters

Much of this work is intentionally invisible.

But it gives Maxithlon a much stronger foundation for the future.

The game is now running on a modern runtime, its automatic processes are faster and easier to monitor, the translation system is being renewed, and the interface is starting its next evolution.

The result should be a Maxithlon that is more stable, faster to maintain and easier to improve.

And, most importantly, it gives us a much better base for the next round of new features.