The overall performance of global mobile games in April:
- Honkai: Star Rail celebrated its second anniversary in April, with a surge in revenue propelling it back into the top 10 grossing chart.
- Delta Force ramped up its marketing efforts following its April launch, entering the top rankings in both Android and iOS.
- Habby’s new title Wittle Defender saw an aggressive promotional campaign, releasing over 8,000 creatives during its pre-registration phase and making a surprise entry into the top 20 ad spend chart.
- Casual games continued to drive volume and revenue, with Rollic’s popular puzzle game Color BlockJam showing steady revenue growth throughout April.
Top 20 Mobile Games by Advertising
Level Infinite’s FPS Mobile Game Delta Force Climbs to Top Ad Spend Rankings in both Android and iOS
As the most popular new game in April, Delta Force is the result of Level Infinite’s full creative dedication. Amidst the current saturation of similar FPS titles, it has sparked a new wave of excitement with its “search, engage, and extract” gameplay.
Unlike its genre pioneer, Escape from Tarkov, Delta Force is notably more beginner-friendly and offers a stable online experience. It also revives the well-known Delta Force IP and integrates elements from the classic war film Black Hawk Down. In addition to the Tarkov-like extraction mode, the game also features a large-scale battlefield mode, which has impressed global mobile gamers.
On April 22, Delta Force officially launched globally. Prior to its release, the game had already amassed over 25 million global pre-registrations. Thanks to the strong popularity of its PC counterpart and an aggressive marketing campaign, the mobile version quickly soared to the top of the free game charts in 169 countries and regions upon launch.
According to SocialPeta, the mobile game Delta Force and its global licensed version Garena Delta Force collectively released nearly 20,000 deduplicated ad creatives across both platforms in April.
Below is a detailed breakdown of Delta Force’s ad performance on the iOS platform:
- In the past 30 days, approximately 62.55% of the ad creatives were in video format, with more than half of them exceeding 30 seconds in length.
- The majority of video creatives were in vertical 720×1280 resolution, accounting for about 60% of the total.
- The daily volume of ad creatives steadily increased prior to the launch and peaked on April 22, the launch day, maintaining consistent delivery through the end of the month.
- English-language copy made up 43% of all ad text, with other popular languages including Korean, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and German.
- The ad copy primarily focused on promoting the Delta Force IP, FPS gameplay, and the large-scale battlefield mode.
Campaign duration: 13 days
In terms of creative content, the creatives for Delta Force primarily fall into several categories
- Gameplay demonstrations,
- Battlefield detail showcases,
- Weapon customization features,
- Real-combat kill highlights.
Among these, the kill highlight reels that showcase realistic combat scenarios are the most prevalent. These videos are particularly eye-catching when paired with rhythmic and catchy background music.
“Roguelike Tower Defense + Card Strategy”: HABBY’s New Game Wittle Defender Makes a Strong Debut
Following the success of Archero 2 and Capybara Go!, Habby is back after more than six months of silence with a new title now entering global testing, Wittle Defender. This game blends roguelike, tower defense, and card-based mechanics. While its structure is surprisingly simple and doesn’t introduce major innovations, the gameplay delivers a strong sense of satisfaction.
Heroes are used directly as defense towers, and players are surrounded by waves of enemies from all directions, evoking an intense, zombie-siege-like thrill.
Wittle Defender is expected to launch on the App Store on June 12, but it has already made it into the iOS Top 20 Mobile Game Ads Ranking as early as April, thanks to its aggressive pre-launch marketing. Its strong promotional push suggests that post-launch performance is worth watching.
According to SocialPeta, Wittle Defender ran approximately 7,700 deduplicated creatives across iOS and Android in April. The breakdown for iOS ad placements is as follows:
- In the past 30 days, image creatives accounted for only 10.78% of total ad creatives, with the majority being square 800×800 formats.
- Video creatives made up nearly 90% of all ad creatives, with approximately 87.8% of them having a duration of over 15 seconds.
- The most common video resolution was vertical 720×1280, accounting for about 38.09% of video creatives.
- The game officially began advertising on March 7, with a gradual increase in volume after April 15, leading to a large-scale user acquisition push at the end of the month.
- English was the primary language used in ad copy, representing around 61.4%, followed by Traditional Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese.
From the video creatives, Wittle Defender mainly focuses on showcasing the game’s upgrade and evolution process. By highlighting different hero combinations and skill effects at various stages, the ads create a strong contrast between the early-game weakness and the satisfying late-game power spike, effectively drawing players in to experience the gameplay for themselves.
Campaign duration: 59 days
The image creatives primarily feature cartoon-style promotional visuals from the game.
Campaign duration: 23 days
Top 20 Mobile Games by Revenue
Games with surging revenue on the App Store in April :
- Boosted by its second anniversary celebration, miHoYo’s turn-based anime RPG Honkai: Star Rail generated over $27 million in single-platform revenue in April, marking a month-over-month increase of approximately 145.5%.
- With steady new season updates, Supercell’s long-standing strategy game Clash Royale brought in over $13 million in single-platform revenue, up around 18.2% MoM.
- Casual games continue to drive volume and monetization, with Rollic’s match game Color BlockJam exceeding $11 million in single-platform revenue, showing a month-over-month growth of about 10%.
Games with surging revenue on the Google Play in April :
- The SLG mobile game Last War maintained its top position on the Google Play revenue chart, generating approximately $50 million in single-platform revenue in April, with a month-over-month increase of about 6.8%.
- Match-3 games continued to see steady revenue growth, with Royal Match and Candy Crush Saga each recording around $36 million in April single-platform revenue, securing the 4th and 5th spots on the revenue leaderboard.
- The female-oriented anime merge game Gossip Harbor also performed well, reaching approximately $16 million in April single-platform revenue, up about 6.7% MoM.
Top 20 Mobile Games by Downloads
Games outstanding with downloads on the App Store in April :
- The puzzle block game Qblock saw remarkable growth, with approximately 2 million single-platform downloads in April. U.S. players accounted for 17.5% of the total downloads.
- The newly launched Disney-themed card game Disney Solitaire]became a global hit, reaching around 2 million single-platform downloads in April (its launch month), with U.S. users contributing 28% of the downloads.
- The match-3 sequel from the Royal series, Royal Kingdom, experienced a surge in popularity, also reaching about 2 million single-platform downloads in April, with 32% coming from Indian players.
Games outstanding with downloads on the Google Play in April :
- The capybara-themed cooking game Cookingdom, which launched in March, quickly rose to fame with over 7 million single-platform downloads in April. Brazilian players accounted for 9% of the total downloads.
- Another hit in the brain-teasing puzzle genre, the mischievous mobile game Brainy Prankster, recorded over 11 million single-platform downloads in April, with UK users contributing 10% of the downloads.
This concludes the global mobile game advertising insights for April 2025, along with the revenue and download data for mobile games on both the App Store and Google Play. For more mobile marketing data, you can visit SocialPeta’s official website.
