Last War: Survival surpasses $2bn after record player spending in early 2025

FirstFun’s mega-hit strategy game Last War: Survival has surpassed $2 billion in lifetime player spending on mobile after a record month this January.

According to AppMagic estimates, the milestone was reached on February 15th, 2025 as an accumulation of gross worldwide player spending on the App Store and Google Play.

Rising through the ranks

Last War was released globally on August 2nd, 2023. It was a modest launch with just $287,000 generated during release month, but this more than doubled to $592,000 in monthly spend as quickly as September 2023.

Monthly earnings went on to surpass $1 million for the first time in October 2023 and have only scaled up since.

The title began climbing rapidly in early 2024 – surpassing $50m in lifetime earnings by the end of last January.

Last War hit its first $1bn in player spending on September 14th, 2024. At the time, that also marked the game’s most lucrative month ever, generating $174.5m.

After a small dip to $171.3m in October 2024, player spending has returned to growth across the three full months since. This included a 21% spike in December to $211.2m.

A further $212m was generated in January 2025, the game’s current record.

Moreover, February’s earnings thus far are on track to reach even higher, with $136.6m generated as of the 16th. This includes a record $11.6m in daily spending on February 14th, 21% higher than 2024’s record of $9.6m on September 20th.

Regional results

Last War’s success has been due in no small part to the US. The market has proven the largest contributor to player spending, at $664.9m or 33% of the total $2bn sum.

The US player base also spent $85.3m this January, or 40% of the month’s total player spending.

Meanwhile, over Last War’s lifetime, South Korea and Japan have established themselves as silver and bronze medallists for spending.

To date, South Korea has contributed $364.7m to the game while Japanese players have spent $361.9m. This means that each country has contributed roughly 18% of global spending.

By comparison, the fourth-biggest market, Taiwan, is currently far behind at $85.5m, or 4% of global spend.

Last War’s explosion in popularity this past year has likely been the result of myriad factors, including heavy-handed advertising and the introduction of new in-game features and challenges like Overlord Training, Frontline Breakthrough and Winter Storm Battlefield. The title also successfully merges hypercasual gameplay with 4X strategy, a genre known for its potentially lucrative monetisation.

Across the industry more broadly, 2024 saw strategy usurp the RPG genre as the consumer spending king, thanks in no small part to the influence of 4X games.