Mall Rivals Store Overhaul (0.3.0)

On 4 May 2026 Creedon shipped the Store Overhaul, version 0.3.0 in the notes. Players still mix it up with Comeback (June) and 1.0 (August). This page is the May drop. If your video has a butcher counter and no casino, you are here. If it has Pharmacy and a perk tree, you want version 1.0.

New and rebuilt shops

Overhaul added Butcher, Perfume, and Tobacco. Fashion, Beauty, and Books were rebuilt rather than given a coat of paint. That is why an Early Access Fashion clip is a layout ghost. The live catalog — including later Florist, then 1.0’s Pharmacy, Home Goods, Hardware, Liquor — lives on store types. Rank them on the tier list. Opening order is on opening picks.

Butcher and food-adjacent types made cleaners non-optional. Perfume and tobacco sit on patience and attractiveness more than on raw box volume. None of them are a reason to skip a cashier. Employees.

Economy: four numbers that actually sell

Overhaul tied the shop to attractiveness, cleanliness, and variety (and dropped a fifth “accessibility” metric in a later April/May pass so stores score on four). Customer patience became a real timer at the till. New registers. That is why pricing is not only the dollar-sign marker — a filthy, empty-looking Sports shop will not move balls even at market.

Workshop textures landed in the same era. A good pack is still not a stocker. See Workshop.

Board meetings rebuilt

The boardroom stopped being a unused set piece. Votes, policy, and the later luxury-versus-value style motions are on board meetings. If your lobby never walks into that room, Social perks are flavour. If it does, Overhaul is why.

FPS, pathing, and the unglamorous FIX list

Overhaul carried a performance pass and a pile of interaction fixes. Comeback later added a “massive bug-fix pass” of its own. Do not treat May as the last time pathing was touched. The timeline on the updates hub is the map.

They recommended fresh saves. A March lease does not know these licenses. 1.0 is a full release; still do not drag a pre-Overhaul save into a buyout lobby and expect the tier panel to make sense.

What Overhaul did not add

No casino (Comeback). No six-branch perk tree, no 1.0 police force, no Pharmacy/Hardware/Liquor/Home Goods pack, no Mall Buyout name. If a guide written in April tells you “five store types and a two-floor mall,” it is pre-Overhaul and pre-everything that followed.

How to play an Overhaul mall in 1.0

You still haul boxes. You still get fined in the hall. You still assign roles or workers idle. Overhaul’s lesson that survived: looks and variety are economic stats. 1.0 stacked daily demand on top. Use the price helper for tags, the store planner for licenses, and do not skip cleanliness because you unlocked Combat.

When a patch note says a type was “rebuilt,” assume old furniture placement advice is wrong. Snap mode (hold Alt) arrived in the demo-to-EA furniture era and still matters when you refit a rebuilt Fashion floor.

Butcher, Perfume, Tobacco — how they actually play

Butcher is inventory discipline. Perishable logic, cleaning, and a customer who will not wait while you finish a lockpick. A cleaner is not a luxury. If you like volume and hate smell events, this is still better than Tobacco as a second license.

Perfume lives on attractiveness and patience. Glass, theft, Overhaul’s “looks like a store” score. Pair it with Fashion so the restock walk is one corridor. Combat perks feel silly until a thief empties a display.

Tobacco is niche demand. Fine as a third license when the tier panel pulses. Greedy as a first lease. Do not open it because it is new; open it because Sports and Pharmacy already print.

None of these replace Sports as the documented starter. They exist so a mall is a mall, not a clone army of soccer balls. Opening picks still starts with types you can staff.

Registers, patience, FPS

New registers in Overhaul changed the scan rhythm. Customer patience is a timer: AFK at the PIN pad and they leave. Esc still cancels a stuck card overlay — controls. The FPS pass mattered on busy two-floor malls; 1.0 added more bodies, not fewer. If a May note said “performance,” do not assume August is free.

Board rebuilds from this patch are why luxury-versus-value motions exist on a wall-sized screen in later captures. If your lobby never votes, skip Social. If it votes, Overhaul is the reason the room matters.

Save warning, again

Overhaul and Comeback both told you to start over. 1.0 is the full release. A save that predates license ladders will lie about what a “good” Fashion shop is. When in doubt, new mall, getting started habits, then rebuild the Overhaul furniture with snap.