Last night, we found a marketing video published by the Mexican company Panadería Licensing. This video claims that 2025 will feature yet another MLP franchise revamp, including a new show featuring "our most iconic characters". However, we also were informed that this revamp may already have been cancelled, that the end of G5 is imminent, and that it is unclear whether there will be any new MLP content in 2025.
Given the uncertain situation, this post is intended to address what we know and what we don't know about the future of Generation 5 and the My Little Pony brand.
The 2024 Franchise Overview
In June 2023, we were sent a presentation about Hasbro's 2024 MLP plans. It indicated that Hasbro would make My Little Pony: Tell Your Tale the focus of the MLP brand. However, because Hasbro has evidently changed course, we can no longer assume that any of the forward-looking information in it is accurate. Some of the now-inaccurate information is listed below.
- Tell Your Tale specials were to be released in March, August, October and November of this year. "The Blockywockys" was delayed to April, and August has elapsed with no special released. It is possible that the remaining three specials may not even be released, and we have no concrete information about their production other than that. On YouTube, "The Blockywockys" underperformed relative to several regular season 2 episodes, so if the show's production really has ended, it wouldn't be surprising for work on the remaining specials to have been abandoned.
- It was stated that 2024 would see 328 minutes of new content; this was previously assumed to be 48 episodes and 4 specials. However, at the end of February, the Tell Your Tale season 2 schedule was hastily adjusted for unclear reasons, becoming biweekly instead of weekly, so season 2 is unlikely to reach 328 minutes of content this year. (The episode order was also changed at the same time. Episodes 8–20 were renumbered as follows: 12, 8, 9, 13, 15, 10, 16, 11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 14. The original episode numbers are shown by YouTube's Content ID system.)
- In March 2024, G5 was to have launched "on linear and AVOD" (i.e. scheduled TV broadcasts and ad-supported streaming). However, this never happened. In mainland China, My Little Pony: Make Your Mark premiered in February 2024, but on a paid streaming service (which is neither linear nor AVOD), and Netflix remains the only distributor of Make Your Mark everywhere else.
- There was going to be "paid media [and] PR support" for Tell Your Tale, but I don't think G5 is actually being promoted right now, not counting social media posts by Chinese licensees. The MLP Instagram and Facebook accounts haven't even mentioned Tell Your Tale since January, and the only recent posts are for brand partnerships featuring G1 and G4 characters. Similarly, the "influencer talent reveal" and "pony dance party music campaign" have yet to materialize, even though they likely would have happened by now.
- A new video game would have been released in the third quarter of 2024, but for unknown reasons, it was released in May instead.
The presentation didn't have information about what would happen in 2025, so we can't assume that the remainder of the 328 minutes would be carried over to 2025. A year ago, Hasbro's Kristin McKay separately stated that content had been greenlit for 2025, and implied that it would be the same amount as in 2024. However, given that the abrupt schedule change happened months after that, it's unclear whether that will still happen.
"A United Ponyverse In 2025"
If we assume that the new marketing video is genuine, we can make the following inferences about what was planned for 2025:
- There would have been a new show featuring both G4 and G5 characters. The G4 characters are still much more well known, so it isn't surprising that Hasbro would want to use them again; My Little Pony: A New Generation was initially planned as a G4 reboot.
- The new show would likely have replaced Tell Your Tale as the main series.
- The new show might have been made very quickly, if it was conceived this year and intended to be released by mid-2025. It took around 18 months for Make Your Mark to go from inception to the release of Chapter 1, and most people seem to agree that that was too rushed.
(The original text in Spanish roughly means: Our most iconic characters / One brand, new series / New brand visual identity / Revamped franchise marketing.)
The video was last modified and released on July 24, 2024, according to its metadata. In spite of this, our sources indicated that the "Ponyverse" plans had already been cancelled in the course of recent internal developments. A new show would apparently not appear before 2026. Coincidentally, the Chinese calendar's year of the horse will begin in 2026; it's possible that Hasbro will take advantage of this somehow.
Conclusions
Obviously, season 2 of Tell Your Tale hasn't ended yet. However, if we look at its YouTube playlist, there may only be four remaining episodes that have been scheduled: below the video for episode 19, there are only four pairs of private videos left. (Of each pair, one would have been for the Tell Your Tale channel and the other for My Little Pony Official.) We do have some evidence for further episodes: among a set of background assets from Vian Teow's portfolio, two files' names indicate that they were for the 35th episode and were finished in early February.
Right now, I think we can make the following conclusions:
- Tell Your Tale's second season will be its last. It will probably end within a year's time, if not sooner.
- We don't know how many more episodes season 2 will have. It could potentially be as few as four, but we don't have any reliable information.
- We don't know if any more specials will be released. We may still get the second Tell Your Tale special, but its fate remains unclear.
- We still don't know what will come after Tell Your Tale. It will probably not be another G5-focused show.
Aside from Tell Your Tale, upcoming G5 content comprises the IDW comics and the Bridlewood RP Roblox experience. The latter is still in beta and no 1.0 release date has been set, but it is still being updated. As for the comics, the miniseries Maretime Mysteries and The Storm of Zephyr Heights are respectively expected to conclude in October and November.
In the meantime, enjoy G5 while it lasts, because we don't know how long we have left until Hasbro moves on to something else.
