Stepping into The Hunt: Roblox 20 for the first time can feel overwhelming because the event spreads across twenty years of Roblox history, dozens of community-built games, and a central hub that only reveals itself once you finish each chronological year. This walkthrough is built for new players who want the shortest reliable path to their first badge, their first UGC item, and the secret Year Infinity layer that veterans chase every September.
The event itself is short. According to the official event FAQ referenced in recent community walkthroughs, The Hunt: Roblox 20 runs from September 17, 3 PM PT until September 28, 10 AM PT, 2026, which gives you roughly ten days to clear every year and still claim the hidden finale. That tight window is why a deliberate unlock order matters more than raw playtime, and why a first time guide can save you from missing the easiest badges entirely.
Before touching a single portal, it helps to understand the shape of the event. The Hunt: Roblox 20 drops you into a central Event Hub built by the Roblox Presents group, then tasks you with visiting one featured experience per year from 2006 through 2025, completing a small quest inside each, and returning to claim a unique badge. Every year also grants a small piece of the overall progress meter, and the meter itself is what eventually unlocks Year Infinity, the bonus finale tier that drops a limited UGC item for everyone who finishes. The pacing is gentle if you follow the order, and brutal if you skip around.
Getting Into the Event Hub and Claiming Your First Free Reward
The single most important first step is to launch the event from the official source rather than from a random game invite. New players who follow a stranger's teleport link sometimes land inside an older year's experience without realizing it, and they end up earning a badge they cannot find later. Always launch from the dedicated The Hunt: Roblox 20 hub page so your progress is tracked against the right account.
Once the hub loads, you will see a circular plaza with twenty glowing portal arches arranged in chronological order, a central quest giver, and a clearly marked UGC claim pedestal near the back wall. The hub layout is intentional. Each portal is labeled with the year it represents and the featured game attached to that year, so you can read the whole twenty-year history from left to right before you touch anything. A full walkthrough of the hub's layout and portal behavior is available in our Event Hub guide, which is the most useful companion to keep open while you play.
| First-Sequence Action | What Happens | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Launch from the official The Hunt: Roblox 20 page | Spawns you at the Event Hub with the year meter at 0% | Establishes the correct progress tracking from minute one |
| Read the year plaques clockwise from 2006 | Previews all twenty featured games before you teleport | Prevents wasted trips into years you cannot yet complete |
| Pick up the starter quest near the quest giver | Logs your account to the event's progress database | Required to receive any badge at all |
| Walk to the UGC pedestal once | Unlocks the cosmetic claim interface for later | Lets you see which UGC items are tied to each year |
The first reward is intentionally easy. According to community reports gathered from the opening hours of the event, simply visiting the hub, accepting the starter quest, and stepping through the 2006 portal to spawn inside Classic: Crossroads is enough to earn a participation badge. You do not need to defeat anything, solve anything, or even survive more than a few seconds inside the year experience on your first pass. That single badge is your anchor: it proves your account is wired into the event system and it counts toward the year meter that gates the rest of the experience.
Understanding the Twenty-Year Unlock Order
The unlock order is the spine of The Hunt: Roblox 20, and it is the area where new players lose the most time. The event is technically non-linear after 2008, but the design intent, and the path of least resistance, is to clear each year in sequence. Doing it that way gives you a steady trickle of badges, a clean sense of progress, and access to the Year Infinity finale the moment you finish 2025. Skipping around forces you to revisit earlier years anyway, because the UGC pedestal only releases its full cosmetic set once the year meter reads 100%.
| Year | Featured Experience | Quest Theme | Approx. Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Classic: Crossroads | Explore and find a hidden plaque | Under 5 min |
| 2007 | Sword Fights on the Heights IV | Win a single duel | 5–10 min |
| 2008 | Rocket Arena | Score one rocket kill | 5–10 min |
| 2009 | Chaos Canyon | Survive a full round | 10 min |
| 2010 | Work at a Pizza Place | Deliver one order correctly | 5 min |
| 2011 | Natural Disaster Survival | Reach round 2 | 10 min |
| 2012 | Base Wars: The Land! | Capture a single base | 10 min |
| 2013 | Apocalypse Rising 2 | Loot a single building | 10 min |
| 2014 | Murder Mystery 2 | Win as Innocent or Sheriff once | 10 min |
| 2015 | Lumber Tycoon 2 | Sell one batch of planks | 5 min |
| 2016 | Roblox High School (Legacy) | Attend a single class | 5 min |
| 2017 | Jailbreak | Escape the prison once | 15 min |
| 2018 | Build a Boat for Treasure | Launch a raft past the first checkpoint | 10 min |
| 2019 | Adopt Me! | Adopt or trade once | 5 min |
| 2020 | Tower of Hell | Reach floor 10 | 10 min |
| 2021 | Brookhaven RP | Visit the town hall | 5 min |
| 2022 | Pet Simulator X | Hatch one egg | 5 min |
| 2023 | Doors | Clear Room 50 | 15 min |
| 2024 | Dress to Impress | Complete one runway | 10 min |
| 2025 | Slap Battles | Land one slap on another player | 5 min |
Notice the rhythm. The early years are nearly free, the middle years are quick skill checks, and the late years lean on familiarity with the featured experience rather than on the quest itself. That structure is why the chronological path is the recommended unlock order guide: it warms you up, builds the year meter steadily, and never asks you to grind something you have not already warmed up to.
If you want a year-by-year deep dive with screenshots and specific tips for the trickier years, the all years walkthrough covers each experience in detail, including the easiest and hardest year quests to plan your evening sessions around, plus the exact objects to interact with when a quest prompt is ambiguous.
Why Order Matters More Than Speed
Speedrunners will tell you the whole event can be finished in a single focused afternoon, and they are right, but the chronological order is what unlocks the cosmetic and badge rewards in the right sequence. The event meter tracks years completed in order, and the UGC pedestal only releases the full reward bundle once the meter hits 100%. Jumping to 2024 first will still give you a 2024 badge, but the meter will show a gap, and the finale layer stays locked until you backfill the missing years anyway. Save yourself the cleanup and go in order.
Reading Badges, Quests, and Progress the Right Way
The Hunt: Roblox 20 uses two parallel progress systems, and confusing them is the most common new-player mistake. The first is the year meter, a long bar across the top of the hub that fills one segment at a time as you complete each year's quest. The second is your personal badge collection, which lives in the standard Roblox profile under the event badge category. The year meter is internal to the event; the badges are permanent and visible to other players. Both must be earned, and they update on slightly different timers, so do not panic if a badge shows up thirty seconds after the meter ticks.
Quests inside each year experience are short on purpose. According to the verified walkthrough published by Royale Luna on September 17, 2026, most year quests boil down to a single objective with a forgiving success condition. The Dress to Impress year, for example, only requires you to complete one runway, not a full themed outfit. The Piggy year, as shown in PGWasTaken's opening-day video reference, only requires the first Found Badge inside the experience, which is reachable in under two minutes for a new player. Treat every year as a five-to-fifteen-minute commitment and you will stay ahead of the ten-day window without burning out.
| Progress Signal | Where to Find It | What It Tells You |
|---|---|---|
| Year meter | Top of the Event Hub | How many years remain before Year Infinity unlocks |
| Per-year badge | Roblox profile, event category | Permanent record of each year you cleared |
| UGC claim counter | Back of the Event Hub | How many cosmetic items you can pull from the pedestal |
| Year Infinity portal | Behind the central quest giver | Locked until meter hits 100%, then permanently available |
When Badges Look Missing
A small number of players report badges that appear in-game but do not immediately show on their profile. This is a known caching quirk, not a bug you caused, and it clears within a few minutes in nearly every case. If a badge stays missing for more than an hour, the fix is to fully close Roblox, reopen it, and revisit the hub so the event service resyncs your profile. Our missing badge fix guide covers the full checklist, including the difference between a delayed badge and a genuinely failed quest.
Choosing Between Roblox Plus and Free Play
The Hunt: Roblox 20 is free for everyone, and every badge and every UGC item in the main event can be earned without spending Robux. Roblox Plus, the optional subscription tier, does not change which years you can clear or which badges you can earn, but it does offer a small handful of convenience perks during the event window, including a faster hub respawn, an extra UGC claim slot, and a small XP bonus on the year meter. None of those perks gate content; they just trim a few minutes off an already short event.
| Option | Cost | Event Benefit | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free play | $0 | Full access to all 20 years, all badges, all UGC items | Players who want the standard event experience |
| Roblox Plus (event window) | Monthly subscription | Faster hub respawn, extra UGC slot, small meter XP bonus | Players who plan to grind Year Infinity in multiple sessions |
| Robux UGC top-up | Per-item | Lets you pull cosmetics early before the meter is full | Players who want a specific cosmetic on day one |
If you are reading this as a true first time guide, the right answer is to play free for the first two days, see how the pacing feels, and only consider the subscription if you find yourself returning to the hub more than twice a day. The event was deliberately designed so free players can clear everything before the September 28 deadline, and the rewards tier is generous at zero cost.
Avoiding the Most Common New-Player Mistake Patterns
The traps are not hidden; they are just easy to miss on a first pass. The first is the assumption that the year quests reset every day. They do not. Each year is a one-shot objective, and once you earn the badge, that year is done. The second is the temptation to join private servers to farm the easier years faster. Private servers do not count toward the event meter, and badges earned inside them often fail to register, so always run the year quests on the public server of the featured experience.
The third trap is ignoring the UGC pedestal until the very end. The pedestal accepts a single cosmetic claim per day in the free tier, and some of the earlier-year cosmetics rotate into a limited supply. Claim something small from 2006 the moment you finish it, even if you do not love the item, because the daily claim limit is shared across the whole event. Players who wait until their meter hits 100% to start claiming often find that the early-year cosmetics are already out of stock.
A quick reference table is helpful here, because the traps share a common shape: they are all about treating the event casually instead of treating it as a layered unlock where each completion feeds the next reward stage and resets nothing along the way.
| Trap | What Goes Wrong | Easy Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Skipping years | Leaves gaps in the year meter, blocks Year Infinity | Clear years in chronological order |
| Using private servers | Badges do not register, meter does not advance | Always play the featured experience on a public server |
| Waiting to claim UGC | Daily limit burns through early-year stock | Claim one item per day starting with 2006 |
| Confusing the year meter with the badge list | Panic when a badge is delayed | Wait five minutes, refresh, revisit the hub if needed |
| Skipping the central quest giver | Starter progress is not logged, first badge may not drop | Talk to the quest giver before stepping into 2006 |
Preparing for Year Infinity Once the Meter Fills
Year Infinity is the secret finale layer that opens the moment your year meter reads 100%. It is not a separate event, and it is not a paid tier, but it is its own self-contained challenge set that requires you to revisit several earlier years under harder conditions. The badge and UGC item tied to Year Infinity are the rarest pulls in the whole event, and they are the reason veterans plan their full ten days around a clean chronological clear rather than a frantic last-day sprint.
The full Year Infinity structure, including which earlier years are revisited, what the harder conditions look like, and how to earn the Infinity badge in a single sitting, is covered in our Year Infinity guide. Treat that article as the next chapter after this one; together, they take you from a brand-new account to a fully cleared event with the secret finale in hand.
A Simple Three-Night Plan
If you only have a few evenings to spare, the cleanest plan is to split the twenty years across three sessions. Night one covers 2006 through 2010, the warm-up block that includes the easiest five badges. Night two covers 2011 through 2017, the middle block where the time-per-year starts to climb. Night three covers 2018 through 2025 plus Year Infinity, the late block and the finale in one focused run. Each session lands in the two-to-three-hour range, which is short enough to finish in a single sitting and long enough to clear the year meter with a buffer day to spare before September 28.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need Robux or a subscription to finish The Hunt: Roblox 20?
No. Every year, every badge, and every UGC item in the main event can be earned without spending Robux. Roblox Plus adds convenience perks like faster hub respawns, but it does not gate any content, and the free path is the intended experience for the majority of players.
What is the fastest way to clear the year meter as a new player?
Go in strict chronological order from 2006 through 2025, claim one UGC item per day starting with 2006, and play every featured experience on a public server. Skipping ahead creates meter gaps that force you to backfill anyway, so a steady sequential clear is faster than any shortcut.
How do I know when Year Infinity has actually unlocked?
The Year Infinity portal appears behind the central quest giver in the Event Hub the moment the year meter reads 100%. Until that meter is full, the portal is invisible. Once it appears, it stays available for the rest of the event window and does not require a separate code or quest to enter.
What should I do if a badge does not show up on my profile?
Close Roblox fully, reopen it, and revisit the Event Hub so the event service resyncs your account. Most missing badges appear within five minutes of a resync. If a badge is still missing after an hour, walk back into the year experience, redo the short quest, and the badge will re-register on the next hub visit.
Can I still earn rewards if I start late in the event window?
Yes, as long as you start before the September 28, 10 AM PT cutoff. The event is short by design, and even a focused two-day run from September 26 onward can clear the meter if you play in chronological order, but you will have no buffer for the optional Year Infinity layer.