The growth of Last War: Survival has been fascinating to watch. The 4X strategy game was launched in June 2023, but it was not until 2024 that it truly gathered momentum. It was among the top five highest-grossing games of last year, bringing in over $1.1B in yearly revenue, according to Sensor Tower.

We have previously covered the new generation of 4X games in the privacy-first UA world through our deconstructions of Whiteout Survival and Puzzles & Survival. However, what makes Last War stand out is the stellar pace of revenue growth versus the competition, especially the subgenre leader, Whiteout Survival.

What are the underlying factors driving this explosive revenue growth? And is this growth sustainable, or are these short-term gains brought about at the cost of other core KPIs? Let’s dive deeper, starting with the team behind the game.

First Fun’s History

This wonderful GameMakers article chronicles the history of First Fun quite well, so we won’t repeat many of the details within. Instead, here are the highlights and why they’re relevant in the context of Last War’s growth:

• The company’s founder, Xie Xian Lin, was the founding CTO of Elex Technology, a Tencent-backed game developer that was acquired by a Chinese strategic company for $433M in 2014, and publisher of the billion-dollar grossing 4X title, Clash of Kings, among other mobile 4X titles.
• After selling Elex Technology in 2014, Elex Technology’s CEO and Xie Xian Lin co-founded Challenjers Capital, a VC with over $1B AUM, and backed River Game. This team is behind another mobile 4X hit, Top War (about $1.1B lifetime revenue, according to Sensor Tower), which arguably gave birth to the new generation of 4X titles we see today.
• In 2021, First Fun acquired a minority stake in River Game, and potentially worked together to launch and scale Last War based on the learnings from Top War.

First Fun’s success with Last War is no coincidence. The company brings together a talented founding team with deep expertise in the 4X genre and prior success in scaling Chinese games to global markets.

But experience only goes so far, and First Fun’s execution on Last War’s is equally important. Let’s unpack how the game was able to scale so rapidly, by the numbers.

Last War’s Explosive Growth

Over 2024, Last War’s revenue grew rapidly, scaling from approximately $30M in January 2024 to about $138M in December 2024 (+360%). Its top three revenue-generating markets are the U.S. (around 30%), South Korea (around 20%), and Japan (about 17%) — as one expects for a mobile 4X title.

Notably, Last War is not yet available in China — and we’re not entirely sure why. That would’ve been a major market for the game too, similar to how Whiteout Survival’s revenue by country mix includes the US (30%), South Korea (about 14%), China (approximately 12%), and Japan (approximately 9%).

In terms of the game’s key revenue driver, Last War has demonstrated speedy active user growth by acquiring a continuously high volume of new downloads every month, as seen below. When comparing these metrics to those of Whiteout Survival, Last War’s growth in global active users far outstrips that of its closest competitor Whiteout Survival and that serves as a major revenue-beating accelerant.

But user growth is just one aspect of its success story. Supporting stellar active user growth with an equally stellar ARPDAU is imperative, since the 4X genre relies on monetizing a small cohort of spenders who are committed long-term to the game. And Last War delivers exactly that, beating Whiteout Survival’s iOS U.S. ARPDAU by over 100% ($2.47 vs $1.08). The case is similar in other key revenue generating regions like South Korea and Japan.

However, Last War lags behind Whiteout Survival on retention. Last War’s D1, D7 and D30 retention rates on iOS in the U.S. are 34%, 11%, and 4% respectively, while Whiteout Survival’s is at 42%, 17%, and 8%, which is a significant retention gap. The impact of this highlights the quality of Last War’s UA-to-product conversion and retention funnels, as explained next.

On iOS U.S., both Last War and Whiteout Survival have relatively the same number of daily downloads. This means that the proportion of game ad viewers who download the game is approximately the same for both titles. In simple terms, one could conclude that the UA-to-product conversion funnels for both games are equally robust.

However, when comparing iOS U.S. DAUs, Last War’s performance is markedly lower than that of Whiteout Survival’s, and it’s a function of Last War’s weaker retention curve. Therefore, even though Last War’s UA-to-product conversion funnel is strong, the data below starts to showcase some cracks in its UA-to-product retention funnel. We’ll explore why in the next section.

Putting all the above together, it makes sense that the RPDs of the two games are relatively similar, with an iOS U.S. RPD of around $16 at D365 — one’s retention strength is balanced out by the other’s ARPDAU strength.

For Last War, a strong ARPDAU coupled with a rapidly growing user base naturally resulted in market success. But given that the game’s long-term D30+ retention is nearly half of its closest competitor, the game could not have become the top 4X strategy game without disproportionately increasing its number of players, thereby making UA activities mission-critical.

Last War’s UA and Live Ops Effectiveness

#1: A Very Successful Creative Concept

A key factor behind Last War’s UA success is how its ads have gained traction on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. In particular, one ad concept stands out from the rest: a math-based shooter minigame rather than the 4X gameplay that’s core to the product. According to Sensor Tower, ads using this concept make up greater than 50% of the game’s UA impression volume across multiple channels.

While players initially download the game for the engaging minigame, First Fun’s hope is that players stay (and pay) for the deeper 4X metagame. Despite criticism from fans about the ads being misleading, over 60% of the first 4-5 minutes of gameplay focus on the shooter minigame, providing a smooth onboarding experience. As players progress, the frequency of the minigame decreases, gradually transitioning them into the 4X metagame.

This approach can help with targeting and acquiring a broad spectrum of players, leading to increased downloads at a lowered CPI. But poor resulting retention, due to an expectation mismatch between the ads and the product experience, is the other side of the coin. And based on the retention numbers showcased above, Last War seems to be suffering from this retention backlash. That ultimately leads to a weaker long-term active user curve and eventually starts to eat away at revenue.

However, Whiteout Survival applies a very similar ad creative strategy and its superior retention curve should serve as a signal to Last War that there is more room for improvement in the UA-to-product retention funnel.

#2: Strong Brand Marketing Campaigns

Last War has leaned into its reputation of misleading advertising, and leveraged it in its innovative influencer campaigns and celebrity brand activations. In these campaigns, influencers are seen playing the above mentioned math-based minigame or shooting zombies.

In Q4 2024, Last War partnered with actor Antony Starr, who plays Homelander in the popular TV series "The Boys," to launch a series of ads that performed very well on TikTok and Snapchat. In these ads, Starr says, “It’s called Last War. It’s going viral because the developers made a real game based off the fake game in the ads.”

That said, these celebrity ads haven’t proven to be as effective (in terms of impression share) as the ads mentioned in the previous section, according to Sensor Tower’s Creative Gallery. But there is less reason to believe that these campaigns did not leverage popular culture to create a buzz around the game, which in turn amplified the game’s UA activities.

#3: A Multichannel Strategy with Success on AppLovin

As expected of many mobile F2P titles looking for massive scale today, a multichannel UA strategy is table stakes. Both Whiteout Survival and Last War execute this quite successfully.

However, Last War seems to be beating out Whiteout Survival on the channel that matters most today: AppLovin. As can be seen below, Last War’s scale on AppLovin is juxtaposed with Whiteout Survival’s decline on the same channel.

One can only speculate why Whiteout Survival decided to reduce its focus on AppLovin, and who knows if it decides to make a comeback at some point. But it doesn’t change the fact that during its scaling phase, Last War had less direct competition on the channel to compete for the same pool of users. Let’s not forget that Whiteout Survival is a top 10 grossing title, which means it not spending on AppLovin is a lot less CPI competition for Last War.

#4: Effective Live Ops Monetization 

Another key aspect of Last War’s success, especially when compared to that of Whiteout Survival’s, is live ops effectiveness. This can clearly be seen in the game’s regular and large revenue spikes, compared to its closest competitor.

Specific live ops differences between the games is out of this article’s scope, but it is worth calling out a few key points about Last War’s live ops:

• The game effectively promotes urgency of spend through time-limited currencies, packs, limited time stores, and huge discounts during live ops events.
• Weekly events such as the Alliance Duel VS promotes "co-opetition" and also creates social pressure to spend.
• The game launched its first season in May 2024 and second season in September 2024, which delivered great revenue lifts.
• Beyond seasonal events and holiday events such as Halloween and Christmas, the game’s live ops leverage cultural moments such as the 2024 Summer Olympics to engage the player community.

Looking Ahead

Last War’s explosive revenue growth can be attributed to two major drivers. Firstly, Last War’s disproportionate growth in active users was driven by a highly effective UA strategy. Secondly, Last War’s effective live ops tactics kept delivering a strong ARPDAU in its key revenue markets. Coupling the user growth with a best-in-class ARPDAU, it’s not hard to see why Last War’s revenue trended the way it did over 2024.

However, to sustain growth over the long-term, Last War will need to focus on a few areas:

• Since the game’s active user base cannot trend upward forever (as UA pools tend to dry up over time), First Fun will need to refocus on fixing the game’s core retention issues, so as to increase the product’s longevity.
• The math-based minigame ads will also lose their novelty over time, and First Fun will likely need to refresh their core creative concept sometime soon. The fact that one ad concept takes up more than half of their ad inventory today tends to present a major UA risk in the future.
• Even though the game seems to have cracked 4X monetization, maintaining its great ARPDAU performance over time will come down to First Fun being able to maintain highly effective live ops, especially in the face of new competitors that are bound to launch.

And let’s not forget, Last War can still decide to launch in China, enabling an influx of new players and significant revenue. Where First Fun decides to take Last War will definitely be an interesting story to watch, and we wish the team the best of luck.

A special thank you to Abhimanyu Kumar for helping me formulate this piece.

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Content Worth Consuming

The State of Video Gaming in 2025 (matthewball.co): “Presentation by Matthew Ball, the CEO of Epyllion, which provides investment and strategic advisory services, produces television, films, and video games, and co-operates/owns the Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF (NYSE: $METV), which was the single largest sector ETF launch of 2021, among various other operating subsidiaries.”

Inside Tripledot Studios’ Strategy(and Soundtrack) for Mobile Gaming Ad Monetization (Peggy Anne Salz’s YouTube Channel): “Monetization in mobile gaming is a lot like composing a hit song – it’s all about finding the perfect balance between melody (user experience) and rhythm (ad revenue). In this episode of Mobile Groove, powered by Verve, we jam with Andrew Seow, Director of Monetization at Tripledot Studios and music aficionado, to uncover how his studio fine-tunes its monetization strategy to hit all the right notes – without compromising the user experience.”

Breaking Barriers: The Journey of a Next-Gen Game Developer Alexandra Takei (Deconstructor of Fun Podcast): “Jen Donahoe sits down with Alexandra Takei, a rising star who’s making waves in the gaming industry. They dive into what it takes to bridge the gap between business and creativity in gaming, the hard-earned lessons from startups, and how proactive collaboration can drive innovation. Alexandra discusses empathy and mentorship's critical role in her career and shares advice for those navigating the fast-paced gaming ecosystem.”

A Spoonful of Sugar: F2P Retention Practices in Applied Gaming - Eva Grillova (Gamification Europe YouTube Channel): “Commercially successful applications have adopted f2p (free to play) best practices. Once they do this they thrive and bring more value to the users. Players can only get better if they stick around. Let’s talk together about how to apply this f2p wisdom to applications that aim to change lives and do this ethically.”

Marketing Experiments and Probabilistic Measurement(with Koen Pauwels and Julian Runge) (Mobile Dev Memo Podcast): “In this episode of the podcast, I'm joined by two academics – Julian Runge from Northwestern University's Medill School and Koen Pauwels from Northeastern University – for a conversation about the methodological (and stylistic) distinction between marketing experimentation and probabilistic measurement.”

How UGC Is Transforming The Games Industry with Bungie and Look North World Founder Alex Seropian (Building Better Games): “Why did Bungie's founder leave the AAA world to start building games in UEFN? What are the advantages and challenges of UGC platforms? Today, we talk with Alex Seropian, veteran game designer and founder of Bungie and Look North World, about the future of our industry.”

How GTA Pioneer Dan Houser’s Absurd Ventures Will Make Great Worlds with Strong Storytelling (venturebeat.com):“South Korean game publisher Smilegate recently made a strategic investment and became a partner in Absurd Ventures, a game studio founded by Rockstar Games cofounder Dan Houser. Houser spent more than 20 years at Rockstar games and drove the creative direction of the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchises, which have collectively sold more than 550 million units worldwide. (Theoretically, that’s about $33 billion worth of games). Houser left Rockstar Games in 2020.”

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