Can Squad Busters 2.0 hit the mark for Supercell?

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"Kill your darlings" has long been a core tenet of Supercell, one of the most successful mobile game makers ever with five $1bn+ hits in the bag. A culture it’s long been proud of.

It nearly didn’t have a fifth success. Brawl Stars languished in soft launch for 18 months, going through significant changes in that time, including a move from portrait to landscape. It seemed as if the title could be cancelled before ultimately becoming another billion-dollar beast for Supercell.

It’s curious to see Supercell’s latest releases Squad Busters and Mo.co bypass soft launch testing and go straight for a global release, bringing lacklustre results.

If Brawl Stars had skipped a year and a half of soft launch testing and player feedback – and more importantly design changes – would it have been as successful? Given the gauntlet it ran to get to a worldwide launch, I think we can say it wouldn’t have been.

Take two

This week, Supercell took a second bite at the cherry with the release of Squad Busters 2.0. After previously admitting the title didn’t meet expectations, the team has rolled out major changes, maintaining the squad aspect while adding hero characters into the mix. It’s starting to look a bit like Brawl Stars with extra steps.

The team is desperate to make Squad Busters a success. And of course, the studio has a case study in Brawl Stars of how it can turn around a game. But that revival was built on the strong foundations of what was ultimately a proven title at its core. CEO Ilkka Paananen previously said he’d never seen anything like it in his entire career – so can lightning really strike twice for a game on less stable footing?

One of the quotes that stuck out in our chat with Supercell was from head of marketing Rob Lowe:

"One of the mistakes we made with the launch of Squad Busters was that we felt through the testing we’d done that we had a game that could appeal to multiple audiences at the same time.”

He explained that Squad Busters is now being more heavily targeted towards “more experienced mobile gamers” who like action strategy games, rather than earlier attempts to bridge casual, midcore and hardcore audiences.

Market fit

I’m reminded of another quote from an industry luminary this week. Jason Avent, former MD at CSR Racing developer Boss Alien, is shutting down his studio Hardball Games. While the investment taps shutting off was a key contributing factor to its closure, Avent was open about the company’s ultimate failings.

Its game OutRage: Fight Fest was originally designed as a free-to-play title for all platforms, but with the money taps turned off, it pivoted to a paid game on PC.

“I think we were trying to make something mass market that ended up being targeted wrongly at a niche Steam audience,” he said.

With Squad Busters already launched globally, I think it could find itself in the same boat.

Supercell has backed itself into a corner somewhat. Does it really want to cancel its first live game? If version 2.0 doesn’t hit the mark, I’m curious whether Squad Busters could find another life within Brawl Stars, which looks to be turning into a platform for multiple experiences.

If “kill your darlings” has been a cornerstone of Supercell’s success, should that be the same for failed global launches too?