News

Update: Crash Bandicoot: On the Run races to 25 million global downloads

22 million installs in first weekend

Update: Crash Bandicoot: On the Run races to 25 million global downloads

Update: Crash Bandicoot: On the Run has generated more than 25 million downloads to date, according to Sensor Tower.

The incredible opening weekend confirmed the new mobile runner as a bonafide hit, with the US leading the way for installs. Brazil then secured second position, before Mexico rounded out the top three.

Crash mobile earned 22 million downloads between its official launch date of March 25th and March 28th, while the remaining three million installs were picked up in the two days prior when the game began rolling out globally.

Original Story: Crash Bandicoot: On the Run has charged to 8.1 million downloads since officially launching on March 25th, 2021.

The hugely impressive number was confirmed by Sensor Tower. It was also revealed that the King developed runner has picked up an additional 3.3m installs, after going live on iOS in certain territories from March 23rd. This means Crash's first original outing for the mobile platform has already earned itself approximately 11.4 million downloads.

On March 25th, the title ranked first for iPhone game downloads across 82 countries and number one for overall iPhone app downloads in 48 countries. Crash Bandicoot similarly topped the charts on Google Play for most downloaded games in 31 countries, as well as the first spot for overall downloaded apps in six countries.

Upon its early release, Crash mobile stormed up the iOS charts to the number one spot for all iPhone game downloads across 91 countries.

For comparison, King launched Candy Crush Friends Saga in 2018 which generated 1.4 million downloads from the App Store and Google Play within the same period. Even the gargantuan that is Pokémon GO, only managed 4.5 million installs on launch day in 2016 (though it was only available in a limited number of countries).

"Brand recognition"

Interestingly, app analytics platform App Annie shared data on the marsupial too, putting the number of installs slightly higher at an estimated 9.1 million across the top eight markets. This included Brazil, Mexico, Italy, Russia, France, Germany, Spain and the US, with the latter contributing 2.6 million (28.5 per cent) of that figure.

"Crash Bandicoot: On the Run is well-positioned to leverage its brand recognition - particularly tapping into nostalgia from millennials who grew up playing the original 1996 Playstation release and subsequent games in the franchise - with the modern-day appeal and distribution of mobile gaming," said App Annie head of marketing insights Lexi Sydow.

"Over 9.1 million downloads in just 24 hours is an impressive start, and surely, just the beginning."

We recently attended an online virtual event detailing the design of Crash Bandicoot: On the Run, where King confirmed that the N. Sane Trilogy was "too detailed and noisy to work with on the small mobile screen".

Prior to that, Crash Bandicoot on the Run creative lead Stephen Jarrett spoke to us about King's pursuit to create "the Crashiest Crash game ever".


Deputy Editor

Matthew Forde is the deputy editor at PocketGamer.biz and also a member of the Pocket Gamer Podcast. You can find him on Twitter @MattForde64 talking about stats, data and everything pop culture related - particularly superheroes.