Brawl Stars

Brawl Starsis amultiplayer online battle arenaand third-personhero shootervideo game developed and published by Finnish video game companySupercell.The game was released worldwide on 12 December 2018, oniOSandAndroidplatforms. The game features a variety of game modes, each with a distinctive objective. Players are able to choose from a large selection of unlockablecharacters, called "Brawlers", whom each have different abilities and playstyles.
Brawl Starstakes place in a fictional abandonedamusement parknamed Starr Park. Initially introduced in a live-action short film,in-game surveillance footage showed that Starr Park closed in 1995 due to magic purple gems that granted several staff and visitors in Starr Park immortality, but in the ensuing chaos, gave life to inanimate objects and mutated plant life and animals
InBrawl Stars, players battle against other players orAI opponentsin multiple game modes. Players can choose between different Brawlers, who can be unlocked through the Starr Road or purchased through the Shop to use in battles.In December 2022, a new progressive unlock system called the "Starr Road" replaced Boxes as the main method to unlock Brawlers.The cost to unlock each Brawler on the Starr Road depends on its rarity.
During a match, players can use their Brawler's normal attack or their Super, a special attack that charges up through damaging opponents or in some cases through additional means. Players can also equip their Brawlers withpower-upsknown as Gadgets, Star Powers, Gears, and Hypercharges; Gadgets and Hypercharges can be activated during a match, while Star Powers and Gears are passive abilities.
Brawl Starshas a variety of different game modes that players can choose from, each having a different objective and maps. Players can invite friends to play with them up to the maximum team size of a game mode. Most modes involve two teams with three players each, though select modes can involve either five or two players per team.
On May 14, 2020, a game update added a new reward system called the “Brawl Pass”.The Brawl Pass is the game's version of abattle pass. When players compete in battles, they earnXP(formerly known as Tokens) to progress along the Brawl Pass and unlock tiers with various rewards. All players have the free Brawl Pass by default. Players could purchase the premium Brawl Pass with Gems, until January 4, 2024, where the pass and its newly introducedBrawl Pass Plusvariant could only be bought with real money.
Players can upgrade Brawlers' stats using Coins and Power Points. Coins are additionally used for buying Brawler-specific upgrades such as Gadgets, Star Powers and Hypercharges . Credits are used to unlock Brawlers, XP Doublers (formerly Token Doublers) are used to speed up progress through the Brawl Pass, and Bling is used to buy most cosmetics, which was added on April 2023, replacing Star Points.
Gems are used to top off any currency that the player does not have enough of, as well as certain cosmetics exclusively available for gems.Winning matches with Brawlers progresses their mastery, which can unlock Brawler cosmetics and progression items (Power Points, Coins and Credits).
The Starr Road was introduced as the method of unlocking Brawlers, after the removal of Boxes in December 2022.Players can select a Brawler from a selection of up to four from the same rarity (from a choice of either Rare, Super Rare, Epic, Mythic, or Legendary) to initiate the unlocking process. Progress is made through Credits, a currency obtained in the Trophy Road, Mastery paths, Starr Drops and Brawl Pass. Players can switch to a different Brawler they wish to unlock at any time, with the accumulated credits transitioning to the new selection.
Once a Brawler is unlocked, it becomes a permanent addition to the player's collection. The Starr Road then presents a new selection of Brawlers from the next rarity tier to unlock. Alternatively, players have the option to acquire Brawlers from the Starr Road using Gems.
Until February 29, 2024, the Chromatic Shop allowed players to unlock certain Brawlers through Chroma Credits, a currency obtainable through the Brawl Pass and used exclusively for unlocking Brawlers who debuted as part of a Brawl Pass. Alternatively, Gems could be used to purchase the Chromatics.
Brawl Starshas a variety of cosmetics. Skins change a brawler's model and animations,and may come with pins for in-game communication, player icons (profile pictures) and sprays.Some cosmetic items are exclusive or limited edition.
There are currently a total of 88 brawlers in Brawl Stars:
TheBrawl Stars Championshipis an annual tournament, composed of a qualifying stage, available in-game, another Monthly Qualifier stage, a Regional Monthly Finals stage, and finally a World Finals stage, in which the best teams compete to win the Championship. The first in-game challenge is similar to other challenges: the players must win 15 matches in the in-game challenge without losing three times. After 15 wins, a regional Monthly Qualifier stage is created, giving access to the regional Monthly Finals.These events lead to the World Finals.
The first edition, known as the Brawl Stars World Championship, was held on November 15 and 16, 2019, at theBusan Exhibition and Convention CenterinSouth Korea. The first-place winner wasNova Esportswith a 3–0 victory. Other competing participants included Animal Chanpuru, Tribe Gaming, 3Bears,Spacestation Gaming, andPSG Esports. With a $250,000 prize pool, it was the first international event for the game and had teams fromNorth America,Europe,Latin America,Southeast Asia,Japan, and South Korea.
In 2020, the World Finals were held between November 21 and 22 with a base $1,000,000 prize pool. Half of the amount was raised using the profits from an in-game championship package. Eight teams participated in the World Finals, which were originally to take place inKatowice, Poland, but were moved online due to theCOVID-19 pandemic. PSG Esports was the winner of that year's championship with a prize of $200,000. The other monetary prizes were split between the teams which won second to eighth place.
In 2021, theBrawl Stars Championshipstarted on February 20. There are eight seasons for the championship that occur once per month, from February to September. The Championship Challenges and Monthly Qualifiers are each live for two days per season. The top eight teams from the regional Monthly Qualifiers go to the regional Monthly Finals. Sixteen teams from the Monthly Finals from all seven regions come together to participate in the World Finals, which took place in that year's edition from November 26 to 28 in-person inBucharest,Romania. The prizes for 2021 were $600,000 in the Monthly Finals, and a minimum of $500,000 in the World Finals with opportunities to increase this amount through in-game offers.
In 2024, the World Finals were held in conjunction with theClash Royale League World Finalsand theClash of Clans World ChampionshipinHelsinki,Finlandduring Superfest, an event developed by Supercell encompassing the beforementioned tournaments.The 2024 edition reached over a peak viewership of over a million viewers.
Supercell set out to develop a team-based game similar toLeague of LegendsandOverwatch. The team wanted to create such a game that was designed with mobile devices in mind first. According toFrank Keienburg,General Manager of Supercell, "Our focus was on retaining a lot of depth while stripping away all the fluff".Although the game contains some elements of thebattle royalegenre, these were implemented before the genre as a whole took off and the team did not set out to make a game with those elements.
The game is notable for its longsoft launchperiod during which virtually every aspect of the game changed.Supercell officially announced the game via alivestreamvideo on 14 June 2017.It received aniOSsoft launch inCanadathe following day.The soft launch would last a total of 522 days, during which internally it was doubted whether or not the game would ever actually see a general release.Initially, the game was played inportrait modeand the movement controls were controlled by tapping on the screen. Eventually, landscape mode and joysticks were implemented.Other changes include changing theUI, changing themetagameand transitioning the game from 2D to 3D.Frank Keienburg attributes the difficult beta period to the developers working in a new genre where they "weren't sure how to interpret its success".The game soft-launched inFinland,Sweden,Denmark,Norway,Ireland,Singapore,Hong Kong,MacaoandMalaysiafor iOS on January 19, 2018.
Brawl Starswas made globally and officially available on December 12, 2018.It made more than US$63 million in its first month.On June 9, 2020,Brawl Starswas released in mainlandChina, with the corresponding changes to accommodate to Chinese regulations byTencent Games.
The game has a partnership withLine Friendsto create officialmerchandise, new skins for Brawlers that are based on Line Friends characters, sticker packs onLine Messenger, and new content. A pop-up store was opened in January 2020 inSouth Koreato sell the merchandise from the partnership. Merchandise is also available at major Line Friends retail stores and online.In September 2022, Brawl Stars also partnered withBT21, featuring new skins and Pins in-game.
The game partnered up withParis Saint-Germain FC(PSG), a French professional soccer club, in 2019 to hostBrawl Stars Ball Cuporganized by PSG's esports division. There were three online qualifier events and an online playoff event. The top two teams travelled to Paris for the finals. The finals were played live at PSG's home stadium,Parc des Princes. All matches took place in Brawl Ball, a football-like game mode.The skins PSG Dynamike and PSG Shelly where also released as part of the promotion.
The game partnered up with PSG again in 2020 and 2021. During the partnerships, the game launched theParis Saint-Germain Challenge. The challenges are similar to the championship challenges, but all matches are based in the Brawl Ball game mode. In 2020, the game offered a PSG skin for Shelly for players who won nine matches and lost four or fewer times. PSG's esports division also has a team that competed in the 2020 championship challenge.In 2021, the game offered a PSG Mike skin for Dynamike.
The game partnered up withGodzillain 2024 to create official merchandise, new skins and pins for Brawlers based on variouskaiju, and a new game mode named Godzilla City Smash.The game partnered up withDragonForcewhere they made a song named "A Draco Tale",a new environment and some DragonForce instrumentals in-game.
The game partnered up withSpongeBob SquarePantsandJohn Cenain 2024 to create official merchandise, new skins and pins for Brawlers based onvarious SpongeBob characters, new game modes named Jellyfishing and Trio Showdown, and a John Cena event.
The game partnered withToy Storyin December 2024 to release a limited timed playableBuzz Lightyearbrawler, skins based on Buzz Lightyear,Woody,Bo PeepandJessie, andPizza Planet-based game modes.
On the 16 of October, 2024 the Brawl Stars team released aYouTubevideo sharing what they would like to update in the future
The game was nominated for "Mobile Game" and "EE Mobile Game of the Year" at the15th British Academy Games Awards.
Brawl Starsreceived "mixed or average" reviews or 72 out of 100 onreview aggregatorMetacritic.
Pocket Gamer's Harry Slater scored the game 3 out of 5. Reviewing the game immediately after global release, he praised that game's progression. He criticized Showdown, the game'sbattle royalemode, for being the weakest of all the game modes that were in the game. He said that Showdown "doesn't capture the real madness of the genre, and there's a distinct lack of tension since you can pretty much see everyone on the map and what they're up to". He mentioned that something felt "missing in Brawl Stars. You'll play, you'll get new characters, you'll unlock new modes, but you're never having quite as much fun as you feel you should be doing." He continued on to say that "the action is relatively flat - in the team matches you know within the first few seconds which way the game is going." He concluded in disappointment because the game did not seem like "the huge step forward for multiplayer mobile action that a lot of us were hoping for."
148 Apps'Campbell Bird scored the game 3.5 out of 5. She started with mentioning that the game felt "like a combination ofArena of ValorandOverwatch." She praised the game's graphics and the developer's implementation of the progression system to encourage players to play again, as well as the quick matchmaking. However, she criticized the game's controls for feeling "oddly loose and muddy". the characters falling "into pretty predictable hero shooter archetypes", as well as claiming that "every mode in the game is some variation on something you’ve seen before in other, better multiplayer shooters." She also highlighted that the frequent connection issues and unbalanced teams made the experience of playing the game less enjoyable.
Brawl Starshas been downloaded over 400 million times. In 2020,Brawl Starshad the second highest gross of any mobile game in Europe.It grossed US$526 million in total in 2020, which accounted for more than half its life time revenue. It was also the fourth game by Supercell to surpass US$1 billion in lifetime revenue.