Ask any mobile game developer and they’ll tell you that, with so much competition, advancing tech and ever-growing player expectations, creating top-rank games is no picnic these days. And those folks at Supercell, they just LOVE to be toppest of the top rank. When they launch a game, they want it to rule like a playful god from on high. Even so, not many developers would go as far as revamping their game the way Supercell has done with Squad Busters.

A new Supercell game is quite the event in and of itself. When ‘Squad’ launched in May 2024, 60 million eager players jumped in, and over the course of a year the game pulled in more than $100 million in revenue. That kind of payday would be a cheese-fuelled fever dream for most studios, but something still niggled at Supercell. Players were feeding back across social media channels and asking for more—better characters, new game modes and more direct control of the moment-to-moment gameplay.

Some teams might have tweaked a few options here and there, or even changed nothing at all in hopes that players would keep turning up regardless. But with healthy in-house competition from Brawl Stars and Clash Royale, and elsewhere from hit mobile MOBA Honor of Kings, the Squad team decided that while, yes, they COULD relax on bean bags stuffed with cash, it would be better to turn up their listening ears and look at how to rebuild their game in line with the pleas of the fans.

Binning Squad entirely would have meant jettisoning all the good stuff that the game already contained—the characters, the team building, the frantic rush for riches and the multiplayer competition. But give the player more direct control over their squad, create Heroes with their own Power Moves, add Squaddie teammates, and you have a game that leaves its auto-battler roots behind and becomes a super rewarding, instant action, multi-player battle ADVENTURE.

It is testament to the skill and dedication of the team that they were able to prepare Squad 2.0 behind the scenes while keeping OG Squad live. But a year on from its original debut Squad is dramatically updated, ready for the world to download.

And the team still aren’t putting their feet up.

As you’ll have seen elsewhere in these pages, Supercell will be looking at broadening Squad’s audience by working with big names on character collaborations. Who players would like to see starring in their own squad is one of the main topics of the conversation with Supercell super hosts Adrian and Paula in their social media feeds and TikTok channel.

Having an open line to the fans who have supported them so far has been critical to the work and success of the Squad Busters team. After a year’s worth of fruitful feedback that has since reshaped their mission, Supercell is unlikely to be hanging up on their players any time soon.