Supercell launches its first game worldwide in five and a half years today, having already passed 5m installs from soft launch alone.
Appmagic estimates suggest that Squad Busters has already racked up over 5.2m downloads from a little over a month in soft launch. It has been available for players in Canada, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Mexico and Singapore since April 23.
Of those markets, Mexico, Spain and Canada were the three leading territories. Supercell has also made around $1.4m in IAP earnings to date, an estimated figure that does not include Apple and Google’s 30% cut.
Supercell is also set to spent big on marketing the game. A celeb-packed teaser ad went live yesterday, with the full promo going live later today. It stars Chris Hemsworth as the Barbarian, Will Arnett as Greg, Christina Ricci as the Witch, Auliʻi Cravalho as Shelly and Ken Jeong as the chicken. There’s also a more traditional animated launch trailer on Supercell’s YouTube channel as well, created by agency Psyop.
Supercell has partnered with Google to offer early access to Squad Busters for players in the Diamond, Platinum and Gold tiers of its Google Play Points system, and has also been offering iOS and Android-exclusive emotes for those who pre-order through the App Store and Google Play.
Supercell targeted 40m pre-registrations by the time the game reached global launch today, having passed 30m on May 14.
Industry watchers are bullish on the game’s prospects. In a recent first impressions round-up, Game Economist Consulting’s Phillip Black described the game as “Supercell’s Super Smash Bros” and says that it has “immense promise”.
Game designer Michal Tomcany was impressed by Supercell’s universe-building, and called it “a masterclass in adaptation, skillfully blending the core gameplay mechanics of Brawl Stars with a dynamic twist from Crowd City”.
Squad Busters might not be Supercell’s only global launch this year. As we reported last week, Supercell has already started teasing that there’s more incoming from its Diablo-style monster hunting game Mo.co. The game was first revealed in October 2023, and was in beta for selected US-based Android players from October 25 to November 6 2023.
As we reported back then, early feedback on the game was positive. Naavik consulting partner Jordan Phang said that “the Supercell magic is back”, describing Mo.co as “A Supercell-ized mix of Diablo Immortal, Monster Hunter, and Warcraft” that “strips out the convoluted mechanics.”
“Mo.co feels like a reimagining of the MMORPG for a mobile audience that is fun, engaging and opens up the funnel to a hardcore genre,” he added. “While we’ll need an extended look at the game for its long-term potential, the first signs are looking very positive indeed.”
