Is Clash Royale dying?

Clash Royale has been a revolutionary title for the mobile gaming industry. It was released by Finnish developer Supercell back in 2016, at a time when most smartphones couldn’t run AAA-level games that are seen in the market today. Nonetheless, Supercell was able to make a genre-defining title which was simple to play in theory, but also highly competitive at the same time.

Unsurprisingly, the game took off. According to a 2018 report, Clash Royale had a staggering 50 million daily active users. Five years later, we take a look at Clash Royale and if it’s dying or dead.

The simple answer is that the game certainly isn’t dead. While the active player count isn’t something that is publicly known, it’s well over a million users per some reports. However, the game certainly isn’t at the level of where it was back in 2018.

One thing that has really irked the player base for Clash Royale has been the recent updates to the game. The most controversial one was the ‘Update for Losers’ in April 2023. It was criticized for making the game more pay-to-win and disincentivizing players from the beloved 2v2 mode. In this update, players couldn’t get crowns and chests from the mode anymore. The main goal was to increase the number of players on the trophy road, which could be a sign of a diminishing player base for the game.

But, is Clash Royale dying?

While the aforementioned update was heavily criticized by veteran players, some of the features didn’t make much of a difference to free-to-play players, who are likely the majority of the player base anyways.

A good way to see the state of Clash Royale is through its esports scene. The highly competitive and strategic nature of the real-time game naturally paved a path towards esports. In 2018, the Clash Royale League World Finals peaked at 361,849 viewers indicating the strong growth of the game. However, between 2018 and 2020, the viewership numbers for the game rapidly decreased. The 2020 edition, for example, had a mere 112,000 peak viewers, per Esports Charts.

This wasn’t the fault of the game per se but can also be blamed on the closed-off franchised esports ecosystem for Clash Royale. This meant that only certain locked teams could pick and field players instead of an open ecosystem.

Fortunately, Supercell brought back the open-for-all system in 2021. As a result, the CRL is also recording a viewership growth over the past two years. The 2022 edition saw 228,000 peak viewers and about 58,00 average viewers, per Esports Charts.

Thus, this indicates that while the game might not be as popular as its 2018 highs, it still has a strong and loyal player base.

Read Also: How to get Trade Tokens in Clash Royale