RLVR-World: Training World Models with Reinforcement Learning
On the map: World models → Latent dynamics models and model-based RL
Abstract (arXiv)
World models predict state transitions in response to actions and are increasingly developed across diverse modalities. However, standard training objectives such as maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) often misalign with task-specific goals of world models, i.e., transition prediction metrics like accuracy or perceptual quality. In this paper, we present RLVR-World, a unified framework that leverages reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR) to directly optimize world models for such metrics. Despite formulating world modeling as autoregressive prediction of tokenized sequences, RLVR-World evaluates metrics of decoded predictions as verifiable rewards. We demonstrate substantial performance gains on both language- and video-based world models across domains, including text games, web navigation, and robot manipulation. Our work indicates that, beyond recent advances in reasoning language models, RLVR offers a promising post-training paradigm for enhancing the utility of generative models more broadly. Code, datasets, models, and video samples are available at the project website: https://thuml.github.io/RLVR-World.
Key facts. Cited by 40 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Latent dynamics models and model-based RL, one of 11 directions in World models. Builds on 67 of its 81 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 20 May 2025.
Builds on
67 of 81 references.
Closest ancestors · 8
Same direction, newest first
- 2024Diffusion for World Modeling: Visual Details Matter in Atari20 May
- 2023TD-MPC2: Scalable, Robust World Models for Continuous Control25 Oct
- 2023Pre-training Contextualized World Models with In-the-wild Videos for Reinforcement Learning29 May
- 2023A Generalist Dynamics Model for Control18 May
- 2022Transformers are Sample-Efficient World Models1 Sep
- 2019Dream to Control: Learning Behaviors by Latent Imagination3 Dec
- 2018Recurrent World Models Facilitate Policy Evolution4 Sep
- 2018Deep Reinforcement Learning in a Handful of Trials using Probabilistic Dynamics Models30 May
Other references · 59
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50 most cited of 59 All 59 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2025: 12; 2026: 28.
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- 2025A Comprehensive Survey on World Models for Embodied AIcited by 68
- 2025From Word to World: Can Large Language Models be Implicit Text-based World Models?cited by 42
- 2025Planning with Reasoning using Vision Language World Modelcited by 36
- 2026Qwen-AgentWorld: Language World Models for General Agentscited by 28
- 2025What about gravity in video generation? Post-Training Newton's Laws with Verifiable Rewardscited by 25
- 2026Visual Generation Unlocks Human-Like Reasoning through Multimodal World Modelscited by 19
- 2025Can One Domain Help Others? A Data-Centric Study on Multi-Domain Reasoning via Reinforcement Learningcited by 17
- 2025MobileVLA-R1: Reinforcing Vision-Language-Action for Mobile Robotscited by 15
- 2026EVA: Aligning Video World Models with Executable Robot Actions via Inverse Dynamics Rewardscited by 14
- 2025Reinforcement Learning with Inverse Rewards for World Model Post-trainingcited by 13
- 2025Integrating Reinforcement Learning with Visual Generative Models: Foundations and Advancescited by 12
- 2026Persistent Robot World Models: Stabilizing Multi-Step Rollouts via Reinforcement Learningcited by 12
28 more
- 2026Is the Future Compatible? Diagnosing Dynamic Consistency in World Action Modelscited by 11
- 2026RoboAlign-R1: Distilled Multimodal Reward Alignment for Robot Video World Modelscited by 8
- 2026RAVEN: Real-time Autoregressive Video Extrapolation with Consistency-model GRPOcited by 7
- 2025Towards High-Consistency Embodied World Model with Multi-View Trajectory Videoscited by 6
- 2026AgentWatcher: A Rule-based Prompt Injection Monitorcited by 6
- 2026Overcoming Statistical Bias in Action-Controllable World Modelscited by 6
- 2026Beyond State Consistency: Behavior Consistency in Text-Based World Modelscited by 5
- 2026Low-rank Optimization Trajectories Modeling for LLM RLVR Accelerationcited by 4
- 2026TRAP: Tail-aware Ranking Attack for World-Model Planningcited by 4
- 2026Learning Visual Feature-Based World Models via Residual Latent Actioncited by 4
- 2026Twin Rollouts: Noise-Coupled Counterfactual Branching in Interactive Video World Modelscited by 4
- 2026OpenWorldLib: A Unified Codebase and Definition of Advanced World Modelscited by 3
- 2026World Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Architectures, Methodologies, Reasoning Paradigms, and Applicationscited by 3
- 2026WorldCycle: Self-Verifiable Reinforcement Learning for Long-Horizon Video World Modelscited by 3
- 2026Agentic Game Development as a Verifiable Trajectory Data Engine for Scaling World Modelscited by 3
- 2026ARTIS: Agentic Risk-Aware Test-Time Scaling via Iterative Simulationcited by 2
- 2025LaViPlan : Language-Guided Visual Path Planning with RLVRcited by 1
- 2025ScRPO: From Errors to Insightscited by 1
- 2025Audio-Visual World Models: Learning Physically Grounded Multisensory Dynamicscited by 1
- 2026MCP-Cosmos: World Model-Augmented Agents for Complex Task Execution in MCP Environmentscited by 1
- 2026Masked Diffusion Language Models are Strong and Steerable Text-Based World Models for Agentic RLcited by 1
- 2026RENEW: Towards Learning World Models and Repairing Model Exploitation from Preferencescited by 0
- 2026ADAPT: Physics-Aware Diffusion-based World Models for Adaptive Predictive Transferable HVAC Controlcited by 0
- 2026WALL-SS: Scaling Long-horizon World Models via Next-Scale Autoregressioncited by 0
- 2026World Model-Guided Reinforcement Learning via Counterfactual User Engagement Simulationcited by 0
- 2026NowcastDiT: Diffusion Transformers are Effective Precipitation Nowcasterscited by 0
- 2026FutureWorlds: Learning Robotic World Models from Alternative Futurescited by 0
- 2026Remembering What Matters for Long-Horizon Robotic World Modelscited by 0
- 2026Remembering What Matters for Long-Horizon Robotic World Models10 Oct 2026
- 2026FutureWorlds: Learning Robotic World Models from Alternative Futures1 Oct 2026
- 2026NowcastDiT: Diffusion Transformers are Effective Precipitation Nowcasters29 Sep 2026
- 2026World Model-Guided Reinforcement Learning via Counterfactual User Engagement Simulation1 Sep 2026
- 2026WALL-SS: Scaling Long-horizon World Models via Next-Scale Autoregression26 Aug 2026
- 2026Agentic Game Development as a Verifiable Trajectory Data Engine for Scaling World Models26 Aug 2026
- 2026ADAPT: Physics-Aware Diffusion-based World Models for Adaptive Predictive Transferable HVAC Control20 Aug 2026
- 2026Twin Rollouts: Noise-Coupled Counterfactual Branching in Interactive Video World Models10 Aug 2026
- 2026WorldCycle: Self-Verifiable Reinforcement Learning for Long-Horizon Video World Models5 Aug 2026
- 2026Overcoming Statistical Bias in Action-Controllable World Models5 Aug 2026
- 2026RENEW: Towards Learning World Models and Repairing Model Exploitation from Preferences15 Jul 2026
- 2026Qwen-AgentWorld: Language World Models for General Agents23 Jun 2026
28 more
- 2026World Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Architectures, Methodologies, Reasoning Paradigms, and Applications28 May 2026
- 2026RAVEN: Real-time Autoregressive Video Extrapolation with Consistency-model GRPO14 May 2026
- 2026MCP-Cosmos: World Model-Augmented Agents for Complex Task Execution in MCP Environments9 May 2026
- 2026Is the Future Compatible? Diagnosing Dynamic Consistency in World Action Models8 May 2026
- 2026Learning Visual Feature-Based World Models via Residual Latent Action8 May 2026
- 2026Masked Diffusion Language Models are Strong and Steerable Text-Based World Models for Agentic RL7 May 2026
- 2026RoboAlign-R1: Distilled Multimodal Reward Alignment for Robot Video World Models5 May 2026
- 2026TRAP: Tail-aware Ranking Attack for World-Model Planning3 May 2026
- 2026Beyond State Consistency: Behavior Consistency in Text-Based World Models15 Apr 2026
- 2026Low-rank Optimization Trajectories Modeling for LLM RLVR Acceleration13 Apr 2026
- 2026OpenWorldLib: A Unified Codebase and Definition of Advanced World Models6 Apr 2026
- 2026AgentWatcher: A Rule-based Prompt Injection Monitor1 Apr 2026
- 2026Persistent Robot World Models: Stabilizing Multi-Step Rollouts via Reinforcement Learning26 Mar 2026
- 2026EVA: Aligning Video World Models with Executable Robot Actions via Inverse Dynamics Rewards18 Mar 2026
- 2026ARTIS: Agentic Risk-Aware Test-Time Scaling via Iterative Simulation2 Feb 2026
- 2026Visual Generation Unlocks Human-Like Reasoning through Multimodal World Models27 Jan 2026
- 2025From Word to World: Can Large Language Models be Implicit Text-based World Models?21 Dec 2025
- 2025Audio-Visual World Models: Learning Physically Grounded Multisensory Dynamics30 Nov 2025
- 2025What about gravity in video generation? Post-Training Newton's Laws with Verifiable Rewards29 Nov 2025
- 2025MobileVLA-R1: Reinforcing Vision-Language-Action for Mobile Robots22 Nov 2025
- 2025Towards High-Consistency Embodied World Model with Multi-View Trajectory Videos17 Nov 2025
- 2025ScRPO: From Errors to Insights8 Nov 2025
- 2025A Comprehensive Survey on World Models for Embodied AI19 Oct 2025
- 2025Reinforcement Learning with Inverse Rewards for World Model Post-training28 Sep 2025
- 2025Planning with Reasoning using Vision Language World Model2 Sep 2025
- 2025Integrating Reinforcement Learning with Visual Generative Models: Foundations and Advances14 Aug 2025
- 2025Can One Domain Help Others? A Data-Centric Study on Multi-Domain Reasoning via Reinforcement Learning23 Jul 2025
- 2025LaViPlan : Language-Guided Visual Path Planning with RLVR17 Jul 2025
- 2025A Comprehensive Survey on World Models for Embodied AIcited by 68
- 2025From Word to World: Can Large Language Models be Implicit Text-based World Models?cited by 42
- 2025Planning with Reasoning using Vision Language World Modelcited by 36
- 2026Qwen-AgentWorld: Language World Models for General Agentscited by 28
- 2026Visual Generation Unlocks Human-Like Reasoning through Multimodal World Modelscited by 19
- 2026EVA: Aligning Video World Models with Executable Robot Actions via Inverse Dynamics Rewardscited by 14
- 2025Reinforcement Learning with Inverse Rewards for World Model Post-trainingcited by 13
- 2026Persistent Robot World Models: Stabilizing Multi-Step Rollouts via Reinforcement Learningcited by 12
- 2026Is the Future Compatible? Diagnosing Dynamic Consistency in World Action Modelscited by 11
- 2026RoboAlign-R1: Distilled Multimodal Reward Alignment for Robot Video World Modelscited by 8
- 2025Towards High-Consistency Embodied World Model with Multi-View Trajectory Videoscited by 6
- 2026Overcoming Statistical Bias in Action-Controllable World Modelscited by 6
12 most cited of 29 All 29 (JSON)
- 2026Remembering What Matters for Long-Horizon Robotic World Models10 Oct 2026
- 2026FutureWorlds: Learning Robotic World Models from Alternative Futures1 Oct 2026
- 2026World Model-Guided Reinforcement Learning via Counterfactual User Engagement Simulation1 Sep 2026
- 2026WALL-SS: Scaling Long-horizon World Models via Next-Scale Autoregression26 Aug 2026
- 2026Agentic Game Development as a Verifiable Trajectory Data Engine for Scaling World Models26 Aug 2026
- 2026ADAPT: Physics-Aware Diffusion-based World Models for Adaptive Predictive Transferable HVAC Control20 Aug 2026
- 2026Twin Rollouts: Noise-Coupled Counterfactual Branching in Interactive Video World Models10 Aug 2026
- 2026WorldCycle: Self-Verifiable Reinforcement Learning for Long-Horizon Video World Models5 Aug 2026
- 2026Overcoming Statistical Bias in Action-Controllable World Models5 Aug 2026
- 2026RENEW: Towards Learning World Models and Repairing Model Exploitation from Preferences15 Jul 2026
- 2026Qwen-AgentWorld: Language World Models for General Agents23 Jun 2026
- 2026World Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Architectures, Methodologies, Reasoning Paradigms, and Applications28 May 2026
12 newest of 29 All 29 (JSON)
- 2026AgentWatcher: A Rule-based Prompt Injection Monitorcited by 6
- 2026AgentWatcher: A Rule-based Prompt Injection Monitor1 Apr 2026
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