Last War: Survival's bet: minigame ads feed a 4X core to $1.1B in 2024

Last War: Survival is the work of FirstFun (Yuanqu Entertainment), a Beijing studio led by Xie Xianlin, founding CTO of Elex — the Tencent-backed maker of Clash of Kings that sold for $433M in 2014. After that exit Xie co-founded venture firm Challenjers Capital, backed River Game and its 4X hit Top War, and in 2021 FirstFun took a minority stake in River Game. Last War launched in 2023, and for a full year it was the fastest-rising game on mobile's revenue charts.

The bet was genre fusion with a marketing twist. Ads for the game barely showed 4X strategy: most of FirstFun's ad impressions pushed a math-based shooter minigame (Sensor Tower credited the concept with over 50% of UA volume), and new players spent their first minutes shooting, not building bases. Only later did the game ease them into the deeper 4X metagame that monetizes. Players criticized the ads as misleading; FirstFun leaned into the joke, even signing Antony Starr of The Boys for Q4 2024 campaigns.

The funnel worked at a scale the genre had not seen. Revenue grew from about $30M in January 2024 to about $138M in December 2024, making Last War one of 2024's top-five grossing games with over $1.1B for the year, per Sensor Tower. On October 29, 2024 it reached #1 on the US grossing chart and #1 in 35 countries that day, per data.ai, after a record September of about $170M in in-app revenue. The US contributed roughly 30% of sales, South Korea about 20% and Japan about 17%.

The weakness was retention: iOS US day-1 retention of 34% trailed Whiteout Survival's 42%, so keeping the revenue curve up required continuous user acquisition and aggressive live ops. By July 2026 the engine was still running but slowing — Arbytestudios put monthly IAP near $64.5M after months above $120M, citing thin new content and the removal of expensive packs.