
Squad Busters’ original thesis has been falsified. What once seemed like KPI paradise: hypercasual-esque core, aggregating Supercell’s beloved IPs à la Super Smash Bros., and infinite consumable-based monetization with zero marginal cost, is now unrecognizable. I was brought in, and called it the game with Supercell’s biggest ceiling! Yet, just a year later, the hypercasual core has vanished, giving way to multiple player-activated abilities and completely removing consumables. Squad Buster 2.0 attempts to simplify nagging launch criticisms, including combat readability, character UX, progression speed, agency out-of-round with unit selection, and agency in-round with abilities. It gets halfway there, but in solving some issues, surfaces others.
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