Supercell is soft launching Squad Busters on April 23, according to a new video released by the Finnish firm.
After releasing multiple April fools at the start of the month, the game’s community manager Paula Báguena confirmed that the game would be soft launching later this month, with more details to come tomorrow.
[UPDATE: Supercell confirmed in this video that the soft launch would kick off on iOS and Android in Canada, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Mexico and Singapore on April 23.]
Squad Busters was first revealed in January 2023, with a brief Android-only beta held in Canada the following month. It’s a top-down squad battling adventure that mashes together characters from Supercell’s Clash, Brawl Stars, Hay Day and Boom Beach IP.
After the closed beta in February 2023, we asked several industry experts about their experiences with the game, and if they thought it could go on to become Supercell’s next multi-billion dollar smash.
Writing for Naavik, games industry researcher Fernanda Gonzalez described Squad Busters as “Supercell’s attempt to casualise the Brawl Stars experience”.
“It takes Brawl Stars’ action gameplay, adds in a layer of roguelike round mechanics, and finishes with a multi-IP character list from all Supercell IPs,” she said. “This results in an engaging casual-MOBA game that is fun to play and watch.”
Industry veteran and Tripledot product director Nikita Tolokonnikov agreed, writing on his blog that Squad Busters could be Supercell’s attempt to broaden out Brawl Stars and Clash Royale’s competitive play.
“The success of Clash Royale and Brawl Stars can be attributed to their ability to attract highly engaged young people who tend to spread the word around,” said Tolokonnikov.
“Squad Busters is positioning itself as a game that can appeal to this audience but with lower skill requirements to get good at it,” he continued. “However, this also means that the skill ceiling is lower, and after playing for a week, I don’t see how you can progress significantly after months or years of playing.”
“This market positioning could attract people who usually avoid competitive games because they find them too difficult. However, it may also lead to those who seek more depth becoming bored after a few weeks or even days.”
Supercell has been grabbing quite a few headlines recently – at GDC last month it revealed how it turned around Brawl Stars’ decline, and shortly before that it cancelled Clash Mini – though it said the game would live on in some form within Clash Royale.
We also spoke exclusively to Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen and former Hay Day lead Stephan Demirdjian about why Finnish firm is now open to external pitches as part of a rigorous new greenlight process.
