Last War Hits $150M Monthly Revenue, Leads Global Mobile SLG Market

Written by: Dominic Kristan, Principal Market Insights Manager
Date: August 16, 2025
Written by: Dominic Kristan, Principal Market Insights Manager
Date: August 16, 2025
In the competitive SLG mobile gaming market, Last War has emerged as one of the most talked-about top-tier titles. According to data from Sensor Tower, this strategy mobile game ranked among the top five highest-grossing mobile games in 2024, generating over $1.1 billion in annual revenue.
Fast forward to January 2025, Last War is showing no signs of slowing down. Industry estimates suggest that the game brought in around $210 million in revenue for the month alone — a staggering figure that cements its position as one of the most profitable mobile strategy games worldwide.
The game’s enduring success can be attributed to its deep, tactical gameplay, global player engagement, and smart monetization strategies. For anyone following the mobile game revenue rankings or analyzing trends in the 2025 global gaming market, Last War is a case study in how an SLG title can dominate both player interest and earnings on a global scale.
As the mobile gaming privacy landscape shifts, the SLG strategy game market is leaning toward more casual gameplay, fueling hits like Whiteout Survival and Puzzles & Survival. These titles have drawn global attention for combining accessible mechanics with competitive depth.
However, Last War has outpaced both in revenue growth, showing an exceptional surge since early 2024. Its ability to blend mass-market appeal with deep strategic features has helped it climb the global mobile game revenue rankings, making it one of the standout success stories in the 2025 gaming industry.
What’s really driving Last War’s explosive revenue growth? And more importantly — can it last? Analysts are debating whether this surge reflects sustainable momentum or if short-term gains have come at the expense of other key KPIs.
Recently, Naavik, a leading game industry research firm, conducted a detailed review of Last War’s performance metrics, user acquisition strategy, and live operations approach. Their analysis not only highlights the tactics fueling this top-grossing SLG mobile strategy game, but also offers a forward-looking view on whether its position in the global mobile game revenue rankings can be maintained in the years ahead.
The success of Last War is no coincidence. YUANQU has brought together a talented founding team with deep expertise in the 4X SLG mobile strategy genre and a proven history of taking Chinese games to the global market. But experience alone wasn’t enough — the studio’s precise execution on Last War played an equally critical role.
From product design to global mobile game marketing and user acquisition, every step was backed by strategic decision-making tailored for the competitive mobile gaming market. The game’s rapid climb in global rankings is a direct reflection of that execution.
Next, we’ll take a closer look at the data that illustrates how Last War achieved such fast growth — and what it means for its future in the fiercely competitive 4X strategy mobile game space.
In 2024, Last War saw a rapid surge in revenue, climbing from approximately $30 million in January to around $138 million by December — a remarkable increase of 360%. Its top three revenue markets were the United States (about 30%), South Korea (around 20%), and Japan (approximately 17%) — closely mirroring the global market distribution for 4X SLG games.
Notably, Last War has yet to launch in China, but the Chinese market still represents a significant potential player base. This pattern is similar to the regional revenue breakdown seen in titles like Whiteout Survival, where the U.S. accounted for 30%, South Korea about 14%, China 12%, and Japan 9%.
When it comes to the key revenue drivers, Last War continues to invest heavily in user acquisition, maintaining high Install rates and monthly active user growth. Compared to Whiteout Survival, Last War has achieved much stronger global active user growth — the primary engine behind its impressive revenue gains.
User growth is only one part of Last War’s success story. Equally important is maintaining a strong ARPDAU (Average Revenue Per Daily Active User) to support that growth — especially since 4X SLG games typically generate most of their revenue from a small, highly engaged segment of players.
Last War excels in this area. Its iOS ARPDAU in the U.S. market is more than double that of Whiteout Survival, at $2.47 versus $1.08. Similar trends are seen in other major revenue regions like South Korea and Japan, underscoring the game’s effective monetization strategy across key global markets.
However, Last War lags behind Whiteout Survival in retention rates. On iOS in the U.S., Last War records a Day 1 retention of 34%, Day 7 retention of 11%, and Day 30 retention of 4%. In comparison, Whiteout Survival posts noticeably higher retention figures of 42%, 17%, and 8% respectively.
This retention gap highlights challenges in Last War’s user acquisition to product conversion funnel and overall retention quality. The breakdown of these metrics underscores areas where the game’s growth strategy could be further optimized.
On the U.S. iOS platform, Last War and Whiteout Survival see roughly the same daily Install volumes. This indicates that the proportion of gamers reached by their respective advertising campaigns is quite similar.
In simple terms, we can conclude that both games have equally strong user acquisition funnels, effectively converting paid installs into product engagement.
However, when comparing iOS daily active users (DAU) in the U.S., Last War noticeably trails behind Whiteout Survival due to its weaker retention curve.
So, even though Last War has a strong user acquisition to product conversion funnel, the following data reveals some weaknesses in its paid acquisition to user retention pipeline. Next, we’ll explore the reasons behind this gap.
Taking all these factors into account, it makes sense that the two games have relatively similar Revenue Per Install (RPD). On the U.S. iOS market, the 365-day RPD for both titles hovers around $16 — meaning one game’s higher retention is offset by the other’s stronger ARPDAU.
For Last War, its higher ARPDAU combined with a rapidly growing user base has naturally driven market success. However, considering its long-term retention is nearly half that of its closest competitor, the game will struggle to become a top-tier 4X SLG title without significantly increasing its player numbers. This makes ongoing user acquisition campaigns critical for sustained growth.
Last War’s User Acquisition and Operational Efficiency
One key factor behind Last War’s strong user support is the attention its ads have received across social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook.
Among these, a standout ad features a digital shooting mini-game rather than showcasing the core 4X SLG gameplay. According to Sensor Tower, ads using this concept accounted for over 50% of the game’s user acquisition impressions across multiple channels.
While players initially Install Last War for its engaging mini shooting game, YUANQU aims to retain and monetize them through the deeper, core 4X metagame experience.
Although some fans have criticized the ads as misleading, over 60% of the first 4 to 5 minutes of gameplay actually focus on the shooting mini-game, providing a smooth and accessible introduction. As players progress, the frequency of these mini-games decreases, gradually transitioning into the full 4X SLG gameplay.
This approach helps target and attract casual players, boosting Installs at a relatively low CPI (cost per install). However, the mismatch between the ad content and actual gameplay experience creates retention challenges. As shown by the retention data above, Last War appears to be suffering from this issue, which weakens its long-term active user curve and eventually impacts revenue.
On the other hand, Whiteout Survival employs a very similar creative advertising strategy but boasts a much stronger retention curve. This contrast should serve as a clear signal to Last War that there is significant room to improve its user acquisition to retention funnel.
Last War has made a strong impact with its secondary gameplay ads through innovative influencer campaigns and celebrity brand partnerships. In these campaigns, influencers showcase the game’s mini shooting feature to players, driving engagement and awareness across key social platforms.
In Q4 2024, Last War partnered with actor Antony Starr to launch a series of ads that performed well on TikTok and Snapchat. In these spots, Starr says, “It’s called Last War, and it went viral because the developers made a real game based on the mini-game featured in the ads.”
That said, according to Sensor Tower’s Creative Gallery, these celebrity-driven ads didn’t generate as much impression volume as the mini-game-focused ads mentioned earlier. Nevertheless, these campaigns clearly leveraged pop culture to create buzz around the game, helping to amplify Last War’s user acquisition efforts.
As expected for many free-to-play mobile games aiming for large-scale growth today, a multichannel user acquisition strategy is essential. Both Whiteout Survival and Last War have effectively executed this approach, leveraging platforms like AppLovin to maximize their reach and optimize ad spend.
However, Last War appears to outperform Whiteout Survival on one of today’s most critical channels, AppLovin. As shown, Last War has scaled up its presence on AppLovin, contrasting sharply with the decline in spend by Whiteout Survival on the same platform.
The reasons behind Whiteout Survival’s reduced investment on AppLovin remain unclear. However, one fact stands out: as a top-tier SLG game, Whiteout Survival pulling back its spend means less competition for Last War on this channel, helping to lower its cost per install (CPI).
Another key factor behind Last War’s success — especially compared to Whiteout Survival — is its real-time operational efficiency. The game frequently achieves significant revenue growth over its closest competitor, a trend that is clearly reflected in the latest financial figures.
While the specific operational differences between the two games may be beyond the scope of this article, it’s worth highlighting several key aspects of Last War’s live operations:
The game effectively drives spending urgency through limited-time currencies, bundles, flash sales in the limited-time store, and massive discounts during live events.
Weekly alliance duel versus (VS) events foster a “coopetition” environment, creating both collaboration and social spending pressure among players.
Last War launched its first season in May 2024 and followed up with a second season in September 2024, both generating substantial revenue spikes.
Beyond seasonal events like Halloween and Christmas, the game’s live operations also capitalized on cultural moments such as the 2024 Summer Olympics to engage and grow its player community.
The explosive revenue growth of Last War can be attributed to two main drivers. First, the game’s disproportionate increase in active users is fueled by an efficient user acquisition strategy. Second, Last War’s effective live operations continue to deliver high ARPDAU across its key revenue markets. Combining rapid user growth with top-tier ARPDAU makes it clear why the game’s revenue surged throughout 2024.
However, to sustain long-term growth, Last War will need to focus on several critical areas:
Since the active user base cannot grow indefinitely—user acquisition pools tend to deplete over time—YUANQU must refocus on addressing core retention issues to extend the product lifecycle.
The mini-game ad concept that currently makes up more than half of their ad inventory risks losing its novelty over time. YUANQU will likely need to refresh its core creative concept soon to mitigate user acquisition risks.
Although the game appears to have surpassed a 4x profitability target, maintaining strong ARPDAU performance in the long run will depend on YUANQU’s ability to sustain efficient live operations, especially as new competitors enter the market.
The images in this article are official screenshots released by lastwar.