Updates Midjourney Midjourney V8 Entering Final Testing Phase, Release Imminent
Midjourney V8 is in its final rating party round with a completely rewritten codebase, native high-res output, and improved text rendering.
Midjourney V8 Nearing Release
Midjourney has launched the final round of its V8 Rating Party, signaling that the next major version of its AI image generator is on the verge of release. CEO David Holz has indicated that V8 should ship before the end of February 2026.
What’s New in V8
The update represents Midjourney’s most significant architectural overhaul since launch. The team has completely rewritten its codebase, switching from TPUs to GPUs with PyTorch — a move that enables faster feature development going forward.
Key improvements expected in V8 include:
- Native high-resolution output up to 2K+ without requiring post-generation upscaling
- Enhanced text rendering within generated images, addressing one of the biggest pain points of AI image generation
- Improved prompt understanding for complex and nuanced descriptions
- New UI with a redesigned interface for the web app
- New “oref” system and style creator for more precise artistic control
- Redesigned Draft Mode for even faster iteration
Community Testing
The V8 Rating Party has been running since mid-February, with community members rating image pairs to help fine-tune the model’s output quality. The final round began on February 20, suggesting the official release is days away.
Context
V8 arrives less than a year after V7, which was released in April 2025 and brought a 40% improvement in anatomical accuracy and 35% better prompt understanding. With V8’s focus on native high-res output and text rendering, Midjourney continues to push the boundaries of what AI image generation can achieve.
Midjourney remains a paid-only platform, with plans starting at $10/month for Basic and going up to $120/month for Mega tier.