Inside Ninja Kiwi’s next game: Building beyond Bloons with Fightland

• Ninja Kiwi’s Bloons franchise is still going nearly 20 years after its Flash game origins.
• The studio has a balance between legacy and innovation, devoting roughly 75% of resources to existing IPs and 25% to new concepts.
• New game Fightland will launch free-to-play and is currently in its final stages of development.

For nearly two decades, Ninja Kiwi has captured a generation of tower defence fans, from its Flash origins to its mobile presence now with the likes of Bloons. But as the studio draws close to its 20th anniversary, it’s also preparing for something new. 

Enter Fightland, a new fast-paced cross-platform title that consists of a massive team battle arena with an approach that looks to be both accessible and competitive. For Ninja Kiwi’s CEO Scott Walker, the game represents both a bold step forward and a natural extension of what the studio is known for doing best. 

“We’re pretty old school at Ninja Kiwi,” he says. “We continue to pursue games that we’re super excited to both play and make. That was the mindset that found traction when the company was founded in the Flash games era, and has continued to guide us as Bloons and Bloons TD found success and we pushed those games further.” 

That passion-first approach continues to shape how the studio looks to expand its IP portfolio. While Bloons remains its flagship franchise, Ninja Kiwi balances between nurturing its established worlds and venturing into new territory. 

“These days we think about what can make Bloon TD more successful, other fun games within the Bloon IP, and other new games that could extend or create new IPs, like the upcoming Fightland game,” Walker explains. 

Ninja Kiwi also tries to find a balance on what the team focuses on, with Walker stating that "strategically we spend about 27% of our game making juice on existing IPs like Bloons and Zombie Assault, and 25% on new concepts and new IPs”.

It’s a split that helps to ensure that the studio continues to serve its loyal player base while leaving room for innovation and new projects like Fightland to form. 

Although there’s a lot of excitement when it comes to a new game, Walker is also pragmatic about the risks: “New IPs are incredibly risky with the sheer number of new games available, so we make sure that anything we develop will help us upskill and bank learnings regardless of the commercial success.”

Established IPs and new ideas

Ninja Kiwi’s internal greenlight process has evolved along with the company. In its early days, ideas came primarily from the founders and senior leadership.

Today it's much more collaborative with Walker telling us that teams are encouraged to work on concepts and pitches during personal development time. He goes on to tell us that one of those concepts was greenlit early this year as an unannounced game that will launch in 2026.

“That particular greenlight process was delightfully informal and emergent, the creators sharing the early demo with teammates, then the full Scotland studio, then the Ninja Kiwi management team and board. It was a fantastic example of a great idea put into a clean, playable prototype, which we find far superior to paper concepts.”

When it comes to new ideas, Walker explains that the team tries to keep things intentionally different, but says he’s also witnessed companies go too wide and lose what makes them special. 

“Our ideas stay within our wheelhouses of strategy, deep progression/RPG, multiplayer, and super dense simulations with lots of things on screen.”

Fightland is a game that aims to do exactly that, and Walker tells us that the team intends to deliver a game that stands apart from other battle titles.

“Fightland intends to deliver gameplay where your build, your skills, squad coordination and your tactical responses all matter, but at a scale and intensity that no other game has achieved on PC but especially mobile,” he explains.

Like Bloons, Fightland aims to simplify deep gameplay into an accessible format. 

Cross-platform and player-first approach 

With Fightland launching across PC and mobile, accessibility is key. Walker tells us that for any game that needs a critical mass of players, allowing those players to join from their preferred platform is crucial. 

“Ninja Kiwi has put years of work into layouts, user experiences and control differences across platforms, and we’re proud that our games earn top ratings across PC and mobile, showing that they feel native.”

Monetisation will also follow a similar player-first approach, with the game being free to download on all platforms, so there’s no initial barrier to trying the game. Walker explains that there will be no ads of any kind, including rewarded ads, at launch.

Purchase will focus on cosmetic or progression unlocks, all of which can be earned through gameplay. “We prefer our games to motivate heaps of players to spend a little rather than a few players to spend heaps.” 

Challenges and looking ahead

The road to developing Fightland has also come with its own set of challenges, with Walker telling us that the biggest hurdle came with the game’s server simulation. “We tried to have a server referee, and it didn’t hold together. Once we pushed server-side, we made fast progress by implementing a full playable with 2D primitives, and we invited the community to playtest it.”

Those playtests proved invaluable for the team, not just for debugging but also for validation. Walker says that the playtest process was massively helpful and something that is encouraged. 

“Playtest preparedness is another important note, as we rushed one of the tests and did not provide enough time to rally players for more than a few days of testing.”

Overall, as the industry evolves, Walker says he sees both opportunities and challenges ahead, particularly in mobile.

“Games need to stay relevant, social, surprising, and provide that promise of connection or laughter that so many people are doom-scrolling for,” he says. He’s optimistic about new technologies like AI but cautious about their impact on discoverability. 

“My biggest worry is that small and indie devs will get drowned out, which is an issue for the entire industry." 

Looking forward, Walker stresses that community remains at the heart of Ninja Kiwi’s approach with plans to look for fans to take on roles as community mods and other various community building, such as forming content creators' channels, fan art and giving input to community events.

The plan is to collaborate closely with players through beta groups and partnerships with platforms like Nexus.gg to share revenue with content creators.

Walker shares that the wait won’t be long. “Fightland is in the final stages before launch, tidying up the last content integration and heading into deep debugging, tuning, and polish."