Subway Surfers is a game that needs no introduction. With over 4 billion lifetime downloads to date, it has defied gravity and continues to soar higher in the mobile gaming stratosphere.
But what’s the secret sauce behind this phenomenal success? How did it become one of the best mobile games? And more importantly, how can you, as a mobile game developer or publisher, decipher its code to propel your own game to such heights?
Here’s everything you need to know.
Subway Surfers: Endlessly Fun
Subway Surfers was released in 2012, co-developed by SYBO and Kiloo, although SYBO has since taken over full operations and publishing. The game’s widespread success has now lasted for more than a decade, still boasting over 20 million daily active users (DAU) and 150 million monthly active users (MAU) on average.
It belongs to the arcade genre and endless runner subgenre. In fact, it’s one of the classic representations of this subgenre, along with other hit titles like Temple Run. Learn more about the differences between the two games in my Temple Run 2 analysis.
Breaking Records
Subway Surfers’ tremendous success additionally stands out in terms of key metrics like downloads, so much so it broke several records.
Check out these stats:
- Subway Surfers was the most downloaded game of 2022, and the past decade.
- It has more than 4 billion lifetime downloads.
- It was the first game to reach 1 billion downloads on Android.
This is what makes Subway Surfers one of the most successful mobile games of all time.
We’ve talked with Sybo’s CMO Philip Hickey about Subway Surfer’s record-breaking success. He expressed that “2022 was a remarkable year for Subway Surfers, a year I like to call the ‘perfect storm’. We witnessed growth not just in the game’s metrics, but also in our social reach, fan base, and team. The real pride comes from sustaining this momentum well into 2023, a true testament to our dedicated team’s efforts.”
It is without a doubt that the past couple of years were triumphant for Sybo. Now, let’s analyze why players like it that much.
What Makes Subway Surfers’ Gameplay So Enjoyable?
To find out why Subway Surfers is so popular among mobile gamers, we need to examine its gameplay, game mechanics, and features.
Highly-Engaging Core Gameplay
At the core of Subway Surfers is simple, yet highly-engaging arcade gameplay.
The main goal of the game is to keep running on an endless path for as long as possible, get away from the guard, and reach the highest score. To achieve that, players run along subway tracks, collect coins and power-ups, and dodge obstacles.
Like most endless runner games, Subway Surfers features a third-person view.
Intuitive Controls
Subway Surfers features simple and intuitive controls one would expect from a casual arcade game. The swiping mechanics allow players to turn left, right, duck, and jump.
Additionally, tapping is used to activate the hoverboard (protects from crashing for 30 seconds) or power-ups (give special abilities).
That makes the game accessible to all types of players. Subway Surfers perfected the endless runner category with satisfyingly smooth controls, intense action, immersive environments, and beautifully animated characters.
Unlike previous endless runner games, the path in Subway Surfers is straight and there are three tracks players need to move between, which significantly simplifies gameplay.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not challenging.
Progressive Difficulty
Subway Surfers is a good example of a game that’s easy to play, but difficult to master. As you play, it gets faster, which makes it more challenging. That, in turn, motivates players to keep playing and beat their high scores.
Power-Ups and Boosters
To achieve the goal of increasing their score in runs, players can use various power-ups and boosters. For example, the coin magnet attracts coins from all tracks, while the jetpack lets players fly through the sky.
Players can pick up these power-ups during runs. Some of them are purchasable in the game’s store. Upgrades permanently increase the duration of power-ups – players can purchase them with coins or get them for free by watching an ad.
That makes power-ups essential for the game’s monetization strategy, but more on that later on.
Progression Systems
If Subway Surfers was just about running along tracks and the only goal was to beat your high score, it would get boring after constant repetition. No matter how fun and addicting the core gameplay is, players need new challenges as well as short-term and long-term goals to continue playing.
To achieve that, Subway Surfers features many progression systems that drive engagement and keep players busy. The main ones are based on completing various tasks and challenges.
Primarily there are missions, quests, and achievements. Each offers challenges of varying difficulty and different rewards. That way, there’s always something to do and players get rewarded often, which leads to a more enjoyable experience.
Missions
Missions are fun challenges players need to finish to increase score multipliers. For example, collect a certain amount of coins or use a certain amount of hoverboards. Each mission has three tasks and completing them gets players a point multiplier.
Quests
Quests are divided into two parts – daily and seasonal quests. The former provides players with short-term goals, while the latter requires more time and work to complete.
Some examples of quests are to spend 3 keys, claim 2 daily gifts, or win a gold medal.
But quests are not available right away – players need to reach a score multiplier 4 to unlock. It’s a great example of gradually introducing and unlocking additional features and progression systems. That way, players are not overwhelmed and have the chance of getting familiar with each game mechanic.
Achievements
There are also various achievements players can work towards. They represent long-term goals, as they’re not as easy to achieve as missions and quests. However, the reward is also greater – players get keys, which are the game’s premium currency.
Social Features
Subway Surfers incorporates social features to enhance player engagement and retention. These features include leaderboards, weekly challenges, AR content creation tools, social sharing, friend interaction, and events/tournaments.
- Leaderboards display the highest scores achieved by players, fostering competition and a sense of accomplishment.
- Weekly challenges provide objectives within a specific timeframe, offer rewards, and motivate players to return regularly.
- AR content creation tools are a new addition to the game, with the recent launch of Subway Studio in June 2023. The feature allows players to create photo and video content with the Subway Surfers crew in their real-world environments and share across social media.
- Social sharing enables players to showcase achievements and compete with friends on social media platforms. To incentivize players to connect their Facebook, the game rewards players.
- Friend interaction allows players to connect, compare scores, challenge each other, and exchange in-game gifts.
- Events and tournaments with limited-time rewards create excitement and encourage regular play.
Subway Surfers Characters
More and more casual games have started utilizing character collection. It’s a huge trend among games of all genres, even though it was traditionally utilized by core games.
In most games, it’s incorporated as a meta-layer and doesn’t affect core gameplay, but rather adds another layer of content.
Subway Surfers has been one of the early adopters of this trend. So much so that game characters are one of the most popular and recognizable aspects of this game.
In 2012, Subway Surfers started off with only 17 characters. Do you know how many Subway Surfer characters are there now?
More than 160 characters!
All of these characters are playable and have different outfits, but collecting all of them is not an easy task. While some are available all the time, many of them are limited characters, meaning players have a limited time to buy them.
Players can buy characters with coins, event coins, character tokens, and keys.
But why would players invest so much time, and oftentimes real money, to collect virtual mobile game characters? It’s not like these characters give them a significant advantage in the game, so what is it then?
Why do People Collect Things?
According to the Journal of Consumer Marketing, as much as 40% of households in the US engage in collecting behaviors. Oftentimes, the items people collect are not even physical, so it’s not always about acquiring material possessions.
Collecting is more of an intellectual and emotional process. Different people have different motivations for it – some people signal their wealth and power, while others have a sentimental attachment to objects. Whatever it may be, it gives people joy and satisfaction to own these things – they feel excited about it.
The motivations behind it are the same as for any type of collecting, including items like characters or skins in a mobile game.
Some players like to show off to other players. Others derive satisfaction from owning exclusive characters and completing their collections. Many of them develop emotional attachments to characters because each of them has a unique personality and style.
For some players, it’s about representing their unique personalities and interests through the characters and outfits they collect. This is one of the reasons why characters in this game are so diverse.
According to Philip Hickey, Sybo’s CMO,