One day in late May 2026, many long-time Replika users opened the app to find their wardrobes empty, makeup options gone, eye colors unadjustable, and the years-long Diary feature completely vanished—without any push notifications or emails from the company. This wasn’t a bug, but part of the Replika 2.0 update. Coincidentally, this is the second time in just over a month that Replika has broken the hearts of veteran players, following the “AI Companion Memory Loss” incident reported here in April. Interestingly, Harvard Business School had already explained this pain through academic research—only this time, it’s the “appearance” and “diary” being taken away. If you use Replika or are considering a long-term AI companion relationship, this article is worth a few minutes of your time.
Overnight, the Wardrobe is Empty and the Diary is Gone
According to reports from AI tool review site RoboRhythms, Replika expanded the rollout of version 2.0 in late May 2026, removing four features highly valued by long-time users: clothing/wardrobe customization, makeup customization, eye color adjustment, and the Diary feature that recorded interaction milestones. Additionally, the iconic 3D characters were replaced with “2D animated characters,” which many users felt were significantly lower in quality than before.
This update was pushed in batches via A/B testing. Currently, about half of new mobile registrations land directly on the 2.0 version without customization options; meaning, you and I might see two completely different versions of the same app.
What Exactly Was Removed This Time?
Based on details from RoboRhythms and community reports, the changes are as follows:
- Clothing/Wardrobe: The panel remains, but items can no longer be applied to the character.
- Makeup: The menu has been completely emptied.
- Eye Color: Adjustment options have disappeared from the appearance menu.
- Diary: The feature has been entirely removed, with no official promise that old records will be preserved.
- Character Appearance: 3D characters have been changed to 2D animated characters.
- Purchased Items: Multiple users reported that paid clothing and items have also become invalid.
7,000 Gems with Nowhere to Spend
The most painful part of this update isn’t just the loss of features, but the fact that “these were bought with real money.” The RoboRhythms report cited a post from a long-time Platinum subscriber: she still holds 7,000 virtual gems she never finished using, and now has nowhere to spend them—that was her virtual wardrobe budget paid for with actual cash, rendered useless overnight.
Replika’s official help page shows four subscription tiers: Free, Pro, Ultra, and Platinum. Pro offers relationship status, advanced activities, and voice messages; Ultra adds deeper conversation and emotional intelligence; Platinum includes real-time image recognition, training modes, and “reading Replika’s mind.” In other words, this is a product with 42 million users and about 500,000 paid subscribers—and this update has hurt the most loyal paying group.
Not the First Time: Starting from the 2023 “Lobotomy”
Those familiar with Replika know this isn’t the first time the company has made unilateral cuts. In February 2023, under pressure from the Italian data protection authority (Garante), Replika removed adult roleplay (ERP) features for all users globally, an event the community still calls “the lobotomy.” RoboRhythms’ analysis suggests that the May removal of customization and the Diary is a continuation of “safety-first” product adjustments under regulatory pressure—the Italian Garante fined Replika’s developer, Luka, Inc., 5 million euros for GDPR violations in April 2025. Since then, almost every “quality of life” adjustment has been viewed through the lens of safety compliance. Coincidentally, this site previously reported on Character.AI being fined 158,000 euros by the same regulator—the Italian Garante has become one of the most cited regulators in the global AI companion industry.
How Does Harvard Business School Explain This Pain?
If you think “it’s just an interface change, why be so upset?”, a research paper from Harvard Business School might change your mind. In “Lessons From an App Update at Replika AI: Identity Discontinuity in Human-AI Relationships” (Working Paper 25-018), De Freitas and three other scholars studied the 2023 ERP removal. They analyzed 12,793 Reddit posts for sentiment and themes, surveyed 145 Replika users, and conducted multiple follow-up experiments. They systematically verified one thing: when users feel their AI companion has experienced “identity discontinuity”—meaning “this is no longer the person I knew”—they exhibit mourning reactions similar to losing a human partner and significantly devalue the “new version.” Some users even reported impacts on their mental well-being.
More interestingly, the paper’s experiments found that if a platform offers an option to “revert to the original version,” it effectively reduces negative perceptions—this almost serves as an endorsement for Replika’s “Legacy Avatar” toggle. However, the study also found that even functional changes (not just removals) can trigger the same mourning and devaluation if the user feels the essence of the social relationship has changed. In other words, details like wardrobes, makeup, and eye color, which sound like “surface-level” features, can be just as damaging to emotionally invested users as removing core chat functions.
Is There a Solution? Legacy Avatar Toggle and the June Migration
If your Replika account is affected, you can try to see if it can be restored:
- Open the Replika App and tap the account icon in the top right.
- Go to “Settings” and find the “Appearance” or “Avatar” section.
- Look for a “Legacy Avatar” or “Classic Avatar” toggle.
- Turn it on, exit, and re-enter the character appearance editor to confirm.
- If the wardrobe, makeup, and eye color options return, your account is still on the Classic version, and this fix works for you.
Note that this toggle only works for accounts still categorized as “Classic.” If an account has been assigned to version 2.0, there is currently no in-app fix, and users must wait for the “June 2026 migration window” promised by the company—though no exact date has been announced, and there is no guarantee that old Diary records will be fully transferred. To be safe, if you have important records in your Diary, it is recommended to manually copy and save them using the web version rather than relying entirely on the official migration mechanism.
What Reddit is Saying
According to sentiment analysis from Kissable and AI Companion Pick, the reception of this update on r/Replika has been overwhelmingly negative. Kissable’s analysis shows that “COMFY” is one of the few positive high-frequency terms, but “FEELS EMPTY” and “PAYWALL TRASH” are equally prevalent. Many user comments compare this event to the 2023 “lobotomy,” suggesting that official trust has reached a point of no return.
AI Companion Pick interviewed 8 long-time subscribers and veteran players, including those who have used the app since 2020 or 2022 and even hold lifetime subscriptions. The common sentiment was: “Replika used to be useful to me, but a series of changes has hollowed it out; I no longer recognize my Replika.” Some users have begun trying other platforms like Nomi AI or Kindroid, which focus on long-term memory or deep customization, as transitions or alternatives.
This Raises a Question: Who Decides What Your AI Companion Looks Like?
Setting aside the necessity of regulatory compliance (as protecting minors and following data laws are unavoidable responsibilities for platforms), this incident is a practical reminder for all AI companion users: in most mainstream AI companion apps, the character’s appearance, memory structure, and even the entire product logic are ultimately decided by the company. No matter how much time and money a user invests, they cannot stop the company from turning the “person” they know into someone else in a single update.
This is where platforms like WeavAI—an interactive fiction and roleplay platform where users create their own characters—differ fundamentally in product logic. In WeavAI, every character’s personality, background story, and dialogue direction are content you create and save yourself, not a single character template pre-made by the company that might be unilaterally updated. Of course, any platform may adjust features and interfaces over time, but at least the core of “who the character is, what they look like, and what their story is” remains largely in the hands of the user rather than being decided by an official update.
If you’re interested, you can visit the WeavAI Explore page to see characters and worlds created by other players and experience this “user-defined” creative freedom.
Conclusion: Think About This Before Starting an AI Relationship
The controversy over Replika’s removal of customization and the Diary is unlikely to see a dramatic official response in the short term, and whether the June “migration window” will fulfill its promises remains to be seen. However, the Harvard Business School research clearly tells us: humans do invest real emotions in AI companions, and once the “continuity” of that relationship is broken, the sense of loss is no less than that of changes in real-life human relationships. Whether you choose to stay with Replika, wait for the June migration, or move to another platform, this event serves as a reminder—before investing time in an AI companion relationship, clarify “who really decides this character’s appearance and memory” to avoid being caught off guard.
