Rollic has built its reputation on puzzle-driven mobile hits like Color Block Jam and Fill The Fridge. But the company has also spent years exploring an adjacent category: action RPGs.
Blob Hero in 2022 was an outlier release at a time when short-session runner games were widely driving mobile charts. With longer sessions that could stretch to around 30 minutes, the title helped put action RPG-style progression more firmly on Rollic’s agenda.
Since then, the company has continued to test multiple action-focused concepts, but it has yet to produce a follow-up hit on the same level as Blob Hero.
Now, a newly posted senior role, highlighting C++, a custom in-house engine, and real-time multiplayer experience, suggests the publisher is still investing in the genre and may be gearing up for a more ambitious attempt in the period ahead.
What Burak Vardal said at Istanbul Slush’D
Rollic’s action RPG interest has also been stated publicly by co-founder and CEO Burak Vardal. Speaking during an Istanbul Slush’D panel, Vardal pointed to action RPG and 4X strategy as two categories where many successful Chinese mobile games have been concentrated, areas he suggested developers in Türkiye have not fully explored yet.
Vardal added that Rollic is actively allocating production capacity toward the genre, saying:
“We are trying to keep a portion of our production as an action RPG and try to focus on that area, which is really hard compared to puzzles. It’s a different landscape, different perspective.”
Burak Vardal – Rollic Co-Founder & CEO
A new senior hire points to heavier tech and multiplayer ambitions
Rollic recently posted a Senior Game Developer, Action RPG role in Istanbul, outlining a highly technical profile that includes strong, professional experience with C++, motivation to work on a custom in-house engine, experience creating or working on a live-service title, and experience with real-time multiplayer games.
The emphasis is notable in a mobile landscape where a large share of titles, particularly in the hypercasual and hybridcasual space, are typically built in Unity with C# as the primary development language.
Rollic’s action RPG experiments: Blob Hero and Magic.io
Rollic’s clearest action RPG proof point remains Blob Hero, which launched in 2022. AppMagic data shows the title has reached 10,122,534 lifetime downloads, led by the U.S. (19%), followed by Brazil (8%) and Vietnam (5%), while 41% comes from other markets.
The game has generated $1,246,271 in lifetime revenue, with the U.S. accounting for 43%, followed by South Korea (8%) and Germany (6%), and 20% attributed to other territories.
Rollic also made another attempt in the genre in 2024 with Magic.io: Spells & Zombies. AppMagic attributes 69,687 lifetime downloads to the title—93% from the U.S.—alongside $69,715 in lifetime revenue, with 98% coming from the U.S.
While the results remained very modest compared to Blob Hero, this suggests Rollic has continued iterating on action-focused concepts.
The live games context: Ali Han Satır’s Rollic trajectory
The action RPG effort also lands at a point where Rollic’s live operations leadership has matured internally. The newly posted role is listed under Ali Han Satır’s team, with the hire expected to join that group.
Satır has progressed through several roles at Rollic over the past four years, moving from Product Specialist (Aug 2021–July 2022) to Game Designer (July 2022–Dec 2022) and then Senior Product Manager (Dec 2022–Oct 2024).
He has served as Head of Live Games since October 2024, a position he continues to hold as of December 2025.
Why move beyond puzzles?
Rollic’s action RPG push comes as RPG remains one of mobile gaming’s largest revenue pools, even in a more volatile market. AppMagic estimates for App Store and Google Play reported that RPG generated $9.3B in player spending in H1 2025, down from $10.4B in H1 2024.
For publishers built on puzzle-scale, that contrast is the opportunity: mass-market formats can deliver huge reach, while RPGs capture deeper spending from engaged audiences. It also helps explain why Rollic continues probing action RPG, despite the higher development complexity and live operations demands, rather than treating the category as a one-off experiment.
