The hybrid informal hype prepare exhibits no indicators of slowing down, with a rising variety of releases making appearances within the top-grossing charts in March. One of the vital current success tales is Rollic Video games’ hybrid informal puzzle recreation, Coloration Block Jam, which managed to achieve the very best IAP efficiency on the GameRefinery charts we’ve ever seen for a recreation in its style. Ought to hyper informal builders observe the lead of Homa Video games by embracing hybrid informal video games as a substitute?
Over within the midcore market, we noticed main updates for among the largest titles. A few of these, equivalent to the most recent updates in Pokemon TCG Pocket and Conflict of Clans, have been warmly obtained by gamers. Others, equivalent to main modifications to Conflict Royale, have despatched gamers right into a frenzy for altering gacha mechanics. Whereas the replace hasn’t had a significant influence on efficiency, managing participant sentiment off the again of it will likely be a problem for Supercell shifting ahead, and highlights the comms challenges of main updates.
With Easter creeping up and loads of Summer season occasions offering alternatives for in-game seasonal occasions, it’s price remembering that April Fools can be a improbable time to introduce new content material in your LiveOps campaigns. When you’re but to embrace April Fools occasions in your recreation, we’ve offered a rundown of probably the most spectacular and wildest occasions we noticed this 12 months. Anticipate loads of eggs, faux recreation bulletins, and a twerking Venom for good measure.
For extra details about these updates and titles, in addition to the most recent traits from throughout the cellular market, take a look at our newest analyst bulletin under.
March’s informal recreation updates
High-grossing puzzle recreation Triple Match 3D reworked its social win streak occasion, Arctic Journey, and turned it right into a solo win streak occasion, including three totally different difficulties primarily based on the variety of consecutive wins to finish the occasion: 5 ranges, 10 ranges or 20 ranges. The more difficult win streaks have higher rewards, however gamers lose in the event that they fail to finish a degree earlier than reaching the tip of the streak.
Roblox launched one other platform-wide occasion, The Hunt: Mega Version, which inspired gamers to compete in 25 totally different video games on the platform, amassing Mega Tokens and fixing puzzles alongside the best way. The occasion is just like earlier platform-wide occasions, and featured an occasion hub in a bespoke The Hunt: Mega Version recreation with portals to the 25 Roblox video games in addition to a particular battle go to unlock rewards. If legible inside Roblox’s T&Cs, the ten quickest gamers to complete the occasion get invited to a dwell match at Roblox HQ, with the profitable gamers taking house a $1 million prize!
Within the occasion, gamers might acquire two forms of tokens: Normal Tokens and Mega Tokens. Normal Tokens could possibly be collected by finishing pretty easy duties throughout the 25 featured video games, and so they unlocked rewards within the fundamental occasion monitor. The Mega Tokens had been obtained via more difficult duties, unlocking rewards within the mega occasion monitor—additionally requiring finishing difficult puzzles. These difficult duties and puzzles had been unlocked progressively all through the occasion, though the issue of those puzzles did develop into simpler because the occasion progressed.
The $1 million prize pool and the unique nature of the occasion rewards incentivized engagement with the occasion, making it the most well-liked platform-wide occasion up to now, with greater than 180 million visits.
Further informal gaming highlights and different information
In our 2025 February Cellular Market Evaluation, we famous the efficiency of a brand new hybrid informal puzzle recreation, Coloration Block Jam, which was constantly rating within the top-download charts. It’s continued to scale since then, and is without doubt one of the highest-grossing performances we’ve ever seen from a recreation on this hybrid informal puzzle class.
That is a formidable IAP efficiency from the sport, and much more notable as there have been few huge characteristic/dwell occasion additions in February or March—solely added ranges and bug fixes. A part of the rationale for Coloration Block Jam’s success is perhaps all the way down to it requiring extra skill-based resolution making than common Match3 video games, making it a more difficult recreation.
Whereas this problem spike is proving worthwhile in the meanwhile, it’s price noting that it does improve the danger of churn if gamers get caught at sure problem curves sooner or later. It appears that evidently Rollic has mastered the sport’s problem curve to this point.
Coloration Block Jam’s success demonstrates the rising curiosity from gamers in hybrid-casual video games. Screwdom, a 3D hybrid puzzle recreation with gameplay just like Screw Jam, hit the top-grossing iOS chart in March, peaking at 99 on the US chart whereas exhibiting an upward development for downloads.
Equally, whereas downloads for the food-themed informal recreation All in Gap began to decelerate, it reached an all-time excessive for month-to-month IAP revenues in March, sustaining a place within the top-50 because of its advert income making it the primary main hit for developer Homa Video games following its transformation from a hyper informal to hybrid informal developer.
One other hybrid puzzle recreation, Bus Escape: Visitors Jam, has been constantly within the high DL 100 since late 2024, regularly scaling in income and just lately hitting the highest GR 200 US iOS. Whereas its core gameplay is nothing new, this efficiency suggests the sport could have picked up new gamers from profitable UA campaigns on socials.
It’s been some time since we’ve talked about Gossip Harbor, however the recreation retains on rising and just lately hit a brand new excessive by breaking into the top-10 grossing. One of many causes for that is there’s been a big push on LiveOps, equivalent to reductions added for bubble gadgets on the merge grid—one thing that’s completely new for merge2 video games. On the subject of merge video games, Merge Mansion’s efficiency dip has leveled out and the title is now clearly following occasion traits equivalent to digging and excavation occasions by launching its personal tackle minigames.
It was Amongst Us that popularized the thought of assassination video games, however Splashin is an attention-grabbing new spin on the system, peaking at GR4 on the obtain charts. It’s a real-world recreation app the place gamers are assigned targets and use location monitoring to get rid of one another. It helps recreation modes like Battle Royale and consists of options like in-app chat and power-up IAPs. The sport’s success within the top-grossing charts is because of its viral unfold amongst highschool and school college students, who’re utilizing it to arrange large-scale social video games.
March’s midcore recreation updates
Die-hard Pokémon followers lastly bought the replace they had been ready for as Pokémon TCG Pocket’s March replace launched ranked matches. Till this replace, solely informal PvP was out there, however gamers can now compete on leaderboard rankings on a seasonal foundation. The implementation is sort of commonplace, with gamers progressing via numerous ranks of pokeballs (commonplace, nice, extremely, grasp).
As is typical with the TCG Pocket’s month-to-month updates, a brand new booster pack, Shining Revelry, was additionally added to the sport. Along with the usual star rarities, this new booster provides shiny Pokémon into the sport. Mimicking efficiency from earlier updates, this new booster pack drove vital income, pushing the sport to a top-grossing spot.
Supercell had an excellent cooldown this month, making some main modifications to Conflict of Clans and Conflict Royale to enhance the pace of gameplay. Conflict of Clans eliminated all coaching occasions for troops, spells, and Siege Machines, whereas additionally eradicating the therapeutic time for Heroes, that means gamers can now begin a multiplayer battle within the Residence Village anytime with out ready.
As well as, training-related boosts have additionally been eliminated, though gamers in Legend League are nonetheless restricted to eight battles per day. To cater to the elevated battle numbers, gamers will now earn and lose fewer Trophies in multiplayer assaults.
Conflict Royale eliminated the timer gachas, which is noteworthy as the sport was initially the trendsetter with timed gachas and launched their utilization throughout many different titles with related gameplay. The brand new gacha system provides prompt rewards equivalent to Fortunate Chests thrice per day, in addition to playing cards and cash as much as 15 occasions per day. Additionally they eliminated Season Store and unfold the gadgets obtained via that to different sources.
The large query: how do gamers really feel about these modifications? The group’s response to Conflict of Clans’ modifications has been largely constructive, because the modifications make gameplay really feel sooner. Wanting on the efficiency of the sport, evidently there was not an enormous loss on this space both (even when timer skips have been a part of the economic system of the sport since day 1).
The response to Conflict Royale’s updates hasn’t been so constructive. High-rated feedback on the YouTube video asserting the information say the modifications will kill the sport, because the elimination of the Season Store strikes some rewards to the paid monitor of the Battle Cross. Whereas gamers have largely criticized the replace, there hasn’t been a notable influence on efficiency but.
Further midcore gaming highlights and different information
DC: Darkish Legion is a brand new technique recreation targeted on PvP battles between your favourite DC heroes, nevertheless it takes affect from a mixture of genres. The principle focus is on the RPG components from character amassing and upgrades, nevertheless it additionally takes some affect from 4X video games via its base constructing and alliance options. That mentioned, it lacks the correct world map and coaching facets which can be in style in profitable 4X video games.
Darkish Legion hit the highest obtain spot after launching in mid-March and has sustained good grossing ranks since, peaking at top-grossing 30. Character collector RPGs have actually struggled in current occasions, so it’ll be attention-grabbing to see if the addition of 4X components helps its efficiency sooner or later.
March additionally noticed the arrival of a brand new recreation from Supercell, mo.co, a top-down monster bashing recreation which launched with an uncommon technique. Whereas the app was downloadable for everybody, you wanted an invite to get into the sport. Invites could possibly be obtained by making use of on one among their web sites, being invited by a good friend who performs the sport, taking part in giveaways by influencers, or reportedly even discovering an advert plastered on the streets.
The gameplay itself is top-down monster bashing finished on a map with different gamers. Whereas one can hunt the monsters alone the best strategy to play the sport is to run round in a spontaneous massive group of gamers. The sport may be very beneficiant, as there aren’t any penalties for dying, and you may even acquire full expertise factors if others defeat the monsters while you’re ready to respawn.
Monetization is the most important query mark for the sport because it focuses solely on cosmetics. Energy development must be earned, and there’s no strategy to enhance this via in-app purchases. Contemplating how busy the gameplay and basic UI can look when it’s finished successfully, it’s exhausting to see the attraction of cosmetics, as it could typically be troublesome to see your character correctly. The sport failed to achieve the top-grossing 200 chart within the US two weeks after its launch.
There have been loads of new 4X video games hitting the market just lately, with Century Video games’ 4X recreation Kingshot persevering with to see success following its launch in late February, because it hit the top-grossing GR 200 in mid-March, peaking at GR 79. It’s virtually a reskin of the already-successful Whiteout Survival from the identical writer, that includes a simulation-like resident administration system, base-building system and dwell occasion framework. The largest distinction is its medieval artwork type and Insurgent Assault levels, which intently resemble these within the Steam technique recreation, Thronefall.
Excessive Seas Hero, one other 4X technique recreation developed by Century Video games, has been within the high obtain charts since its launch in January and at last entered the top-grossing 200 on the finish of March. It includes a distinct naval battle theme with a Fallout Shelter-style base-building system.
Different Highlights
April began with the April Idiot’s occasions, and whereas they don’t fall underneath our March protection we wished to briefly spotlight some findings whereas the subject is scorching. Seasonal occasions are a improbable alternative to drive income with LiveOps updates, and we seen a stunning variety of video games doing one thing particular for a day that many builders won’t be embracing but.
Listed below are a few of our favorites:
- CookieRun: Kingdom introduced again an earlier April Idiot’s occasion by which you unlock alternate appears for the characters by handing them a usable merchandise known as shroomies. The shroomies had been obtained by finishing numerous duties throughout the recreation.
- Brawl Stars returned to a joke from earlier years by bringing again Egg-skins for its characters.
- Overwatch 2 ran its annual April Idiot’s seasonal occasion, this time titled Completely Normalwatch—which lasted a complete of two weeks reasonably than a single day. It included a limited-time mode with absurd hero stability modifications for its characters (equivalent to Hanzo having the ability to trip on Orisa in battle like an archer on a warhorse, Wrecking Ball being very tiny however rising like a snowball when hitting enemies, and Reinhardt having the ability to cost and probably stun a participant with out time limitations), a job occasion for distinctive rewards, and googly eyes on all heroes.
- PUBG: Battlegrounds ran a bigger scale waifu-themed April Idiot’s occasion which turned the sport’s weapons into anime ladies. The principle spotlight is the “Winner Winner Romantic Dinner” interactive story relationship net minigame made in collaboration with Krafton’s AI recreation growth studio ReLU. The sport consists of numerous April Fools’ themed job mechanics equivalent to having the participant mimic the sound of a pigeon into their mic.
- Destiny/Grand Order developer Aniplex launched a particular April Fools recreation in Japan, Destiny/Closing Journey, with top-down shoot ’em up gameplay. The sport was downloadable from App shops and solely out there to play on April Idiot’s Day. Within the information part of Destiny/Grand Order, two information tongue-in-cheek articles introduced each the launch of the brand new title and the tip of service for it!
