X-Hero is the weirdest $100m game yet

This shape-shifting idle battler is cynical, misleading – and very successful. So what does that tell us about ads and player expectations?

Feb 23, 2024

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iOS game X-Hero: Survival is the most extreme case of UA-driven mobile game design yet: an idle card-battler that is effectively relaunched every few weeks as its icon, store screenshots and FTUE is remodelled on whatever happens to be working out there in adworld.

It’s known as Epic Heroes on Android, just to add to the confusion. And according to Appmagic, it has now earned developer Bingchuan Network over $100m – a remarkable milestone. (Appmagic figures do not include the app stores’ 30% cut and some local taxes, so gross player spend will be even higher.)

When X-Hero broke out in 2022, the UA ad hook was those ‘Save the Doge’ minigames, in which you draw lines to protect a poor pup from a swarm of angry bees. The ads, the icon, the FTUE, everything was geared around that – and then, a couple of minutes in, the ‘real’ game reveals itself: a superhero-themed, card-collecting idle battler. It’s jarring, to say the least.

The UA minigame is then relegated to an icon on an increasingly busy menu bar, to be played again at your leisure if you stick around after that. And guess what: plenty of people did.

By October 2022, as I reported at the time, Appmagic estimated it had earned its developer over $30m, generating over 6m installs in September alone. Then it suddenly disappeared from both app stores completely, only to return two weeks later.

And ever since, the game has cycled through every UA ad hook imaginable, from saving children from swarms of weird bugs to today’s silhouette-based puzzles, just like the ones from ancient App Store banger Shadowmatic. (A pleasing callback to a simpler time, for those who’ve been in the business a while.)

The reason i’ve not run a ‘proper’ story on the site about all this is that frankly I don’t know what to make of it all. What does all this tell us about advertising and player behaviour – that nothing really matters anymore?

Is it even profitable, or is every penny getting pumped back into UA and constantly remodelling the FTUE? Is that sustainable? How are they getting all this through app review, which has very clear rules on misleading content?

I don’t have the answers, reader. We’re all used to mobile game ads that push the limits, but the story of X-Hero is something else – and one that contains some slightly uncomfortable truths about mobile in 2024.

And with that: thanks for getting all the way to the end. The rest of this week’s stories are below, and remember – you can support my work here:

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