Supercell’s Squad Busters is heading to China

Supercell’s Squad Busters has appeared on China’s App Store ahead of a launch in the country.

The title was part of a batch of 128 games to be given license approval in October last year. It was joined by Goddess of Victory: New Hope.

Supercell parent company Tencent will take on publishing duties in China. According to the App Store page, the title is set to launch on iOS on April 22nd, 2025.

Squad up

In international markets, Squad Busters has generated more than $100 million to date across the App Store and Google play, according to Supercell. The title’s launch was backed by a marketing campaign that featured an all-star celebrity cast including Chris Hemsworth, Christina Ricci and Auliʻi Cravalho.

Despite crossing the $100m mark, the title hasn’t reached the level of other Supercell titles in the past, each of which had surpassed $1 billion in lifetime revenue.

Earlier this year, CEO Ilkka Paananen and game lead Eino Joas opened up on the title’s launch. Paananen said it had become “very hard to break through with a new game”.

“It has become so hard that some companies (or so I have been told) have essentially given up on creating new games, and will just try to seek to buy them when they get to scale,” he said.

Joas said the title had achieved “good early metrics” from 120,000+ players during a closed beta. The company also wanted to take risks and not get stuck in “analysis paralysis”.

“It had been five-plus years since launching Brawl, and as a company we really wanted to ship a great new game,” said Joas.

“We wanted to make sure we do not fall into the trap of ‘analysis paralysis’ and wanted to be bold, and take risks. We believe that taking risks is a critical part of Supercell culture. We do not want to become a company that is so tied up with success that we don’t dare risk failure.”

Paananen said the team isn’t satisfied with Squad Busters and will be making a number of “fundamental changes” to the game.