The daily active users of "Subway Surfers Escape" have exceeded 37 million, and Peacekeeper Elite leads the search, fight and retreat game genre comprehensively.
On June 24th, "Peacekeeper Elite" first announced the DAU (Daily Active Users) achievement of its "Subway Escape" mode - over 37 million on May 1st.
Almost straightforwardly, this Tencent game, a major product in the shooting game market, has suddenly opened several blind boxes regarding top - grossing DAU games and changes in the game industry.
The DAU of the Subway Escape mode in Peacekeeper Elite exceeded 37 million (data on May 1st).
Firstly, the DAU scale achieved by "Subway Escape" in the form of a new game mode has outperformed most independent game products. This indicates that in the past four quarters, the continuously growing "evergreen flagship" product owes its success not only to the vitality of its mature content segments but also to its timely capture of the category trend.
Even top - grossing DAU products, which have been in operation for many years and may be suspected of ecological solidification and R & D inertia, still have a chance of success in content transformation and adapting to market changes.
Secondly, 37 million is currently the highest DAU in the search - fight - retreat game category, and it is far ahead, several times higher than the newly launched high - profile products with a DAU of over 10 million that have been on the market for less than a year. The search - fight - retreat category, regarded as an incremental category in the shooting game industry and even the entire game industry, has not yet entered the stage of direct user competition. In the long run, it indeed has the potential to become a new mainstream category. Moreover, compared with the large - scale development paths of previous popular sub - categories such as tactical competition, open - world, and anime - style games, more efficient "popular gameplay cultivation" is now taking place within the ecosystem of leading brands rather than the old - fashioned "thousand - game battles" of new products.
The ability of leading products with ecological advantages to seize trends may be on the rise, and the anxiety of industry giants about "missing out on XX" seems to be alleviated.
Of course, what's even more surprising than these two pieces of information is that "Peacekeeper Elite" achieved its success in the search - fight - retreat market in just one year. According to the latest iterative preview released by the official, within this year, they not only took the lead but also made long - term plans.
For game developers in the confused period of mixed trends and concepts, the story of "Peacekeeper Elite" can be a great slice of the truth.
01 Adapt to the trend and overtake later
The search - fight - retreat category is a rare sub - category that has emerged simultaneously at home and abroad in recent years. Simply put, the basic idea of this gameplay is to add more experience dimensions to shooting games and enhance long - term playability.
Compared with the previous popular category, tactical competition, which follows the pattern of "land, search for equipment - PVP battle", the search - fight - retreat category expands the experience process to "prepare for battle - enter the battlefield, search, kill NPCs and get rewards - retreat - sell the rewards - upgrade battle preparations".
By integrating multi - dimensional experiences such as strategic gaming, character development, resource management, PVP, and PVE, search - fight - retreat shooting games have quickly gained popularity in recent years with their stronger sense of immersion, randomness, and growth. They have become the new choice for many young players and those who are tired of the repetitive experiences of traditional shooting games. According to estimates by Diandian Data based on the download and revenue data of independent products on the App Store, even without including the user scale of "Peacekeeper Elite", which may have attracted tens of millions of search - fight - retreat users at that time, the download share of domestic search - fight - retreat products reached 13.8% in 2024, quickly growing into the third - largest force after tactical competition and team battles.
Source: Diandian Data's "Report on the Development Trend of Mobile Shooting Games".
By early 2024, several new search - fight - retreat games had been launched or were in testing at home and abroad, and many listed domestic game companies had made arrangements. Some continued the hardcore experience of PC games, emphasizing the core elements of survival, search, and combat, and made platform migrations closer to the original flavor. Others began to innovate in elements, enhancing strategy and confrontation to make the fighting and retreating experiences more exciting, thus meeting the needs of a new generation of hardcore players. Most of the leading products in this category have gained a considerable number of initial users.
According to Tencent's Q1 and Q2 2024 financial reports and performance presentations, during the period when search - fight - retreat games were successfully attracting shooting game players, "Peacekeeper Elite" was in a bottleneck period of growth. The Q1 2024 financial report pointed out that the product had a year - on - year decline in revenue due to "weak commercial content in the second half of 2023". The Q2 2024 performance presentation stated that thanks to the launch of the Subway Escape mode, the product "resumed" year - on - year growth in July.
Source: Tencent's Q2 2024 performance presentation.
In this situation, based on its large user base and diverse user characteristics, accurately identifying and choosing the trendy gameplay initially recognized by the market to meet the novelty - seeking needs of "Peacekeeper Elite" players, retain and bring back old users, and attract new users is a strategic move unique to mature high - DAU products.
However, another fact is that "Peacekeeper Elite", known for its large - scale and high - speed iterative production capacity in the industry, did not enter the market earlier in 2022 or 2023. Instead, it launched "Subway Escape" as a built - in mode in June 2024.
This late - entry is facilitated by two other advantages of "leading products" in adapting to market changes:
First, it's easy to understand that during the years of meeting the content consumption needs of hundreds of millions of users, these products have built high barriers in product R & D capacity, user acquisition, and ecosystem. This gives them the option to choose the right time to enter the market - even if they don't act immediately, they can quickly produce and acquire users.
Second, due to their experience in R & D and operation of products and even categories from scratch, "Peacekeeper Elite" can more accurately judge the characteristics of the category, its compatibility with itself, and the most suitable way to cultivate popular gameplay for this category.
In the case of "Subway Escape" in "Peacekeeper Elite", the leading product recognized the complex R & D and operation requirements of the search - fight - retreat category, which involves multiple modules such as shooting competition, numerical growth, strategic gaming, and economic balance. It also found a solution to the fatigue of repetitive experiences in the mid - to - late stages of shooting games through the long - term goals and gameplay brought by the search - fight - retreat category, beyond the traditional PVP "rank" system.
According to estimates by the Game Work Committee and Gamma Data, in 2024, despite the rising cost of user acquisition, the market scale of mini - games, which emphasize instant play, was still in a period of rapid growth. The annual revenue increased by about 99.18% year - on - year to 39.836 billion yuan, accounting for about 17% of the total revenue of the mobile game market. In the game industry, users' attention and patience are limited, but their threshold for excitement is constantly rising. More people need to quickly enter the game and gain sufficient excitement in fragmented time.
Source: The Game Work Committee and Gamma Data's "Report on the Chinese Game Industry in 2024".
In a buyer's market where the user growth rate has been below 1% for four consecutive years, making positive, fast - feedback, lightweight, and diversified adaptations within a mature IP ecosystem is a more suitable approach for meeting the psychological needs of the general public and achieving large - scale development of the category than hardcore restoration.
Based on these information advantages and resource capabilities, mature high - DAU products can achieve a higher success rate in content transformation. "Peacekeeper Elite", an "evergreen flagship", entered the market later, adapted to the trend, and efficiently cultivated the search - fight - retreat category with a "treasure - hunting search - fight - retreat" gameplay, becoming the leader.
02 The real advantage lies in the ability to change
Evergreen games and the GaaS (Games as a Service) model have been high - frequency terms in Tencent's financial reports and executives' speeches in the past two years. In its 2024 annual report, Tencent also announced the specific criteria for evergreen games for the first time: mobile products with an annual revenue of over 4 billion yuan and a quarterly average DAU of over 5 million, and PC products with a quarterly average DAU of over 2 million.
Having a stable and large user base, healthy profitability, and high commercial value are direct evidence of a product's market position and growth potential.
To make a GaaS - mode product achieve an evergreen state, the key is not the length of operation or the scale at a certain stage, but whether the chosen mode can endow the product with the ability to change immediately and effectively. It is about delaying the aging of mature content and meeting the needs of different eras by developing new content segments.
There are two mainstream forms in this level of mode selection: The first is product IP - based, where the same IP is split into a product matrix of different categories, and the traffic and commercial value are always retained within the IP ecosystem. This is more suitable for original products with a relatively mature worldview, such as RPG and MOBA games. The second is a more concentrated approach, adding experiences within a single product, similar to "super - apps" like WeChat and Alipay that integrate multiple functions.
The common pain point of both approaches is that whether the new - category experience appears as a derivative product or a built - in mode, it must undergo effective gameplay cultivation and user retention. Otherwise, it cannot achieve significant long - term growth to increase commercial value or even offset the loss of users from the original product/IP.
In the case of the second approach, the content limit of a single product and the potential negative impact of the new - category experience on the original core users also need to be considered.
Now, the success of "Subway Escape" has proven that "Peacekeeper Elite" has found a solution to the second mode - creating a "shooting gameplay complex" with platform - type functions and achieving large - scale cultivation of the search - fight - retreat category through a "treasure - hunting search - fight - retreat" gameplay.
First, it is integrated as a permanent mode. "Subway Escape" has an independent entrance, season rhythm, and asset system. It has no binding relationship with the existing classic tactical competition, hero shooting, and team battle modes in Peacekeeper Elite, but shares social and appearance assets. This provides freedom for new players and convenience for existing Peacekeeper players to try something new or simply pass the time at the end of the classic mode season.
On this basis, "Subway Escape" has grasped two key elements for large - scale development:
First, price advantage. Since "Peacekeeper Elite" mainly generates revenue from battle passes and appearance items, and the appearance assets of each gameplay module are interoperable, "Subway Escape", as a mode aimed at increasing DAU, theoretically has no commercial pressure. Therefore, compared with other products that sell "safety boxes" (to retain certain items in case of failed retreat) or require players to recharge and purchase appearance items separately, "Subway Escape" is currently free - to - play. This is the most practical threshold for the general public to enter the game.
Second, lightweight design. It meets the needs of novice players to "get more choices and stronger excitement in a shorter time" - by highlighting the "treasure - hunting" element in the gameplay name and experience, emphasizing lightness and diversity.
The core of the lightweight design is simplification.
On the one hand, it lowers the threshold for players to experience the game and reduces the number of rules they need to learn.
Most search - fight - retreat games require players to identify the direction of enemies by sound, have a backpack storage system with different - sized grids where only items of corresponding sizes can be placed, and different body parts being injured will affect movement, and different medicines are needed for treatment to enhance the sense of immersion. In contrast, "Subway Escape" inherits features such as automatic item collection, sound markers on the map, and one - click treatment from Peacekeeper Elite. The backpack has a fixed capacity, and players only need to calculate the weight of items without having to worry about arrangement. Players can just start a game and go treasure - hunting without too much study.
On the other hand, it reduces the negative experiences of players and the cost of achieving maximum excitement.
Generally, search - fight - retreat games emphasize the balance among search, fight, and retreat, and some even focus more on fighting. To ensure the motivation and hardcore experience of the game, most products reduce the probability of finding high - value items and increase the difficulty of searching and retreating. It is common for players to find low - value items after ten - plus minutes of gameplay and then lose their items due to being killed, resulting in a negative experience. In "Subway Escape", "treasure - hunting" is prioritized over "search - fight - retreat". The item drop rate is higher, and retreating is more convenient. Even if players don't win a fight, the free safety box can carry out the highest - value items, and usually only low - value bullets and medicines will be lost from the carried equipment. This virtual experience of guaranteed profit and sudden wealth to some extent meets the human nature of aversion to loss and the desire for instant gratification.
