diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 74e6eb47..63cfcce1 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,3 +1,19 @@
+# 1.2.0
+
+Release Date: TBD
+
+- Support free threaded Python. #654, #686
+- Dropped support for Python 3.9. #656
+- Fix missing error checks in C code. #665, #666, #667, #672
+- Fix `strict_map_key` option didn't work for `object_pairs_hook`. #673
+- Increase DEFAULT_RECURSE_LIMIT of Unpacker to 1024. #676
+- Fix memory leak when Unpacker returns error for invalid input. #671
+- Fix `Packer.pack_ext_type()` ignored `autoreset` option. #663
+- Fix `Timestamp.from_datetime()` returning wrong value for pre-epoch datetimes. #662
+- Fix use-after-free in `unpackb()` and `Unpacker.unpack()` for non-contiguous input. #677
+- Fix possible memory leak when calling `Unpacker.__init__()` several times. #687
+
+
 # 1.1.2
 
 Release Date: 2025-10-08
diff --git a/msgpack/__init__.py b/msgpack/__init__.py
index f3266b70..f7346d0f 100644
--- a/msgpack/__init__.py
+++ b/msgpack/__init__.py
@@ -4,8 +4,8 @@
 from .exceptions import *  # noqa: F403
 from .ext import ExtType, Timestamp
 
-version = (1, 1, 2)
-__version__ = "1.1.2"
+version = (1, 2, 0)
+__version__ = "1.2.0rc1"
 
 
 if os.environ.get("MSGPACK_PUREPYTHON"):