Active Matter Wipe: Harmonization Cycles Explained

Active Matter does not wipe your progress at release: the studio said in its January 16, 2026 developer Q&A that it did not currently plan to wipe any progress when the game left its Early Version, and the September 15, 2026 launch went ahead on that basis. What players mean by a wipe in this game is two narrower things, a seasonal cycle that resets parts of the progression track, and an optional self-wipe you trigger yourself. As of September 21, 2026, on build 0.4.0.122, both are still part of the game.

Does Active Matter wipe your progress?

The short answer is no, and the reason it keeps being asked is that the studio wording leaves a door open. The Q&A states that the studio currently does not plan to wipe progress upon the full release, then adds that only something absolutely core to the game, such as the meta or the progression, might make it revisit that decision. Progress made during the paid Early Version, which ran on the Gaijin Store from September 9, 2025, therefore carried into the September 15, 2026 release. None of that statement covers the seasonal cycle, which is a separate mechanic.

What the Harmonization Cycle is

The Harmonization Cycle is the name of the game seasonal cycle structure, and a new cycle opened with the September 15, 2026 release. Each cycle carries rewards, and the official Harmonization Cycles Q&A, published on September 14, 2026, explains how Merits are spent on them. Cycle 1 ended a few days early because the system was reworked, but the studio said its rewards can still be obtained with Merits.

Official screenshot, © Matter Team / Gaijin Network Ltd.

Merits: how they are earned and what the limits are

Merits are the currency that makes a cycle worth replaying, and the Q&A is unusually precise about where they come from and where they stop. The rules below decide whether grinding past the ceiling is wasted effort, which is why they are worth reading before a long session. They are also not the same thing as Prime, the currency that survives a seasonal reset entirely.

Rule	What the official Q&A says
Where Merits come from	Completing daily Priority Raid objectives and Monolith Access Levels inside the cycle
Past cycles	Merits can be spent on rewards from earlier cycles
Levels earned outside the cycle	Monolith Access Levels earned outside the cycle do not award Merits retroactively
Cap and overflow	Merits have a limit and one overflow is allowed; anything beyond that is discarded
Pass requirement	If you already earned a cycle reward you count as a participant and do not need to buy that cycle pass

The cap plus the single overflow allowance is the pair worth memorising, because together they decide whether farming past the ceiling still pays. The studio showed how strictly the outside-the-cycle rule is applied when it awarded bonus Merits on September 18, 2026 to players who completed Monolith Access Levels and created new timelines between the September 10, 2026 update (0.4.0.76) and the September 15, 2026 release. Unlike Merits, Prime does not reset with Harmonization (single source, Steam store page text).

Self-wipe: what resets and what is kept

Self-wipe is the player-triggered version of the reset, and the official FAQ describes what happens to bought content: version-gifted items return to the stash, with crystallised Active Matter, also called Prime, named as the exception. That exception is the difference between tidying up a character and losing premium currency, so it is the line to read twice before confirming. Official pages do not walk through the full sequence of what a self-wipe changes, so the clearest description of the experience comes from one player.

That player is a Steam Community discussion post from March 31, 2026, in which an operator who opened the Monolith portal was sent back to the tutorial with a fresh start, keeping different basic character models and more inventory space (single source). The official FAQ, by contrast, says only what happens to version-gifted content, not what the confirmation prompt does step by step. Treat the player account as one outcome rather than a specification, because it predates the September 15, 2026 release and the Monolith systems were reworked in the meantime.

Official screenshot, © Matter Team / Gaijin Network Ltd.

Monolith progress and new timelines

The official Q&A ties repeatable Monolith progress to one specific action: only creating a new timeline lets you run Monolith levels again and earn Merits a second time. Because that rule lives in the Q&A while the self-wipe exception lives in the FAQ, the two halves of the reset are documented in different places, which leaves the in-game confirmation prompt as the authoritative statement about what an account loses at that moment (to confirm). If a cycle reward is within reach, the ordering matters, since a new timeline resets the Monolith track attached to it.

For anyone weighing a reset, the documented checklist is short. Prime survives, version-gifted items go back to the stash, and the Monolith track is what a new timeline reopens. Anything beyond those three points is not documented officially as of September 21, 2026.

Official screenshot, © Matter Team / Gaijin Network Ltd.