Clash Royale hits post-pandemic record of $3.8m daily revenue with new mode Merge Tactics

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Daily player spending in Supercell’s Clash Royale has hit a near four-year high following the launch of new game mode Merge Tactics.

The turn-based mode was rolled out globally on July 4th, 2025, and was soon followed by a spending surge up to $3.8 million on July 8th.

According to AppMagic estimates, this was the game’s highest level of gross daily spending seen between Google Play and the App Store since December 20th, 2021.

Spending surge

Merge Tactics features four-player battles with a shared pool of Troops who can be merged with duplicates to power up and unlock various bonuses. The mode began rolling out in late June but became fully available to players last week.

But the road to this revenue surge has been paved over many months. In fact, in-game player spending has been on the rise for four consecutive months already – since changes in gameplay philosophy and a rebalancing of rewards took place earlier in the year.

Clash Royale’s current spending rise started in March 2025, up 12% month-over-month to $20.9m. The game went on to earn $23.7m in April before the big surge, up 67% to almost $40m in May.

While March and April’s total sums weren’t out of the ordinary – Clash Royale’s monthly player spend has typically fluctuated between $20m and $29m over the past two years – May’s earnings were up by 46% year-over-year to well above that standard.

This rise continued in June, up 127% YoY to $51.4m, making it the game’s most lucrative month since December 2021.

The most successful day of the month, June 2nd, saw spending reach $2.9m. This was the first time in 1,225 days that Clash Royale surpassed $2.5m in daily player spending, and prior to Merge Tactics’ release, was its highest daily peak since 2021.

“Eliminate every barrier”

Though multiple updates have taken place over these months of growth, the rumblings of this stark rise likely began on April 7th.

At that time, Supercell overhauled Clash Royale’s battle pass with a 50% increase in tiers – up from 60 to 90 – and changed rewards in the free pass and Diamond pass, encouraging players to spend more time in-game to reach the new, highest tiers during a pass’ active period.

April 7th also saw a change in Clash Royale’s design philosophy, with the removal of Chest Queues, timers and keys, meaning players can unlock rewards without having to wait hours in real time.

The Clash Royale team stated explicitly that the goal was to “eliminate every barrier that’s stopped you collecting rewards at your own pace”, and as part of the same update, simplified battle rewards and combined them with daily win rewards too.

Now, players’ first three battles per day net five extra Crowns each, while their first three wins net bonus rewards, Crowns and Lucky Drops. The next seven wins also come with further rewards.

All these changes intersect at a clear goal to get players battling more every day for immediate rewards, rather than log out and wait for the payoff later.

Of course, the new mode Merge Tactics is yet another reason to play for longer each day.

Survival of the fittest

Supercell has a proven track record for axing unsuccessful soft launches and that culture has extended to the removal of failing features from globally launched games.

This was recently seen with Squad Busters’ major overhaul in Version 2.0, which changed victory conditions and removed multiple modes like Doppelgangers, Double Trouble, Epic Overload, Loot Machines and Hatchling Herder.

In Clash Royale’s case, Supercell streamlined certain content on April 7th, removing the Banner Box, Banner Tokens and Season Tokens, and closing the Season Shop in its current form.

“Despite offering many great rewards, the Season Shop wasn’t very popular. Some players didn’t participate in seasonal events, while others didn’t know the shop even existed,” the Clash Royale team explained.

“We want to make the best rewards accessible to all players and give everyone the freedom to enjoy their favourite modes without being forced into seasonal events.”

Players were given in-game gold in exchange for the removed token types. That same day, a new unlockable champion card was introduced in Boss Bandit, who can teleport and turn invisible – meaning players didn’t just log on to find less content.

Clash Royale generated $1.4m on April 7th, nearly double the $734,000 earned the day prior. This wasn’t unprecedented for an update day but likely laid the foundations for the rise that followed.

When the next season update arrived on May 5th, titled The Undead March, daily revenue shot up to $1.8m and remained above $1m per day for the rest of the month. This update introduced an evolution to the Witch character and various milestone events.

June’s new season, How to Evolve Your Dragon, began on the 2nd and coincided with that almost four-year high of $2.9m. Again, daily earnings have stayed above $1m every day since, with players finally able to evolve their Inferno Dragon after nine years – in what was likely a well-timed pop culture nod to the How to Train Your Dragon remake in cinemas.

New seasons often add new evolutions, so these latest are unlikely to be the sole catalysts of the sudden, sustaining revenue climb – even if Inferno Dragon’s has been long awaited.

Rather, it seems Supercell’s gameplay changes in April have built steam over time, ultimately leading to June’s record post-pandemic performance in time for the new game mode Merge Tactics’ rollout this July.

And after triggering the game’s highest daily earnings since 2021, whether July as a whole shapes up to be another month of growth will soon become clear.