There’s a game that has been sitting in the top-grossing charts for over a year, despite not being among the most downloaded.
It’s Last War Survival, and it’s a bit of a sensation.
It appears to hook you in and get you spending without you even noticing.
And it’s so addictive that it’s even causing divorces.
In this article, we’ll go over Last War Survival gameplay, its monetization tactics, and the secrets of its success.
Last War Survival: Background
Last War Survival is a midcore and strategy game developed by the Chinese studio FUNFLY PTE. LTD.
The game was launched in August 2023, and looking at AppMagic data in December 2025, we see that over time, it acquired almost 160 million downloads and over 2.6 billion dollars in revenue.
In fact, if we look at the charts, we see that Last War Survival is n. 49 for downloads and n. 2 for revenue.
What’s the reason behind this mismatch?
Being a midcore game, Last War Survival requires a bigger time investment than other casual games, so it appeals to a smaller player base.
However, these players are highly engaged and willing to pay to progress.
We notice it when looking at the number of monthly active users (MAU), that is, the players who play every month. From the graph below, we see that they are more or less steady over time, meaning that the same players keep playing over time:
However, to really understand why the game is earning so much, we need to look at the gameplay.
The data in this section was gathered using the premium version of the AppMagic tool.
Last War Survival: Gameplay
Last War is a midcore strategy game, which belongs to the 4X category (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate).
In a world invaded by zombies, your job is to kill those zombies and reclaim the land that was taken from you, building your city from scratch.
So, the game combines two main game modalities.
On one side, there are the fights against the zombies. While progressing in the game, you keep building and reinforcing your army, and the fights also become more difficult.
Once the zombies are defeated, you can build your city. Each new section of land reclaimed expands your territory.
The game isn’t very intuitive at the beginning, also because it lacks a proper tutorial that introduces you to the main game mechanics.
However, you can quickly get the hang of it by playing.
Social Elements
The game has another interesting feature, which is also what makes it so popular.
Players all over the world can join Alliances, groups of hundreds of players that join forces to fight other groups.
Players in the Alliances can help each other, coordinate attacks, share resources, and so on.
Within these Alliances, there’s also a proper hierarchy, like in a real army, and everyone is expected to follow the rules of the group.
These social features turn what could have been a solitary and quite repetitive game into a social experience with a sense of purpose.
Is Last War Survival like the Ads?
This is a popular question.
Many people download the game because they came from the ads, which show an army of soldiers fighting the zombies and getting bigger and bigger by hitting a multiplier wall.
The studio also leverages this question for its ad campaigns (but we’ll talk about this more in-depth later).
However, we must say that the game is almost like the ads.
For example, the ads never show the city-building part of the game, which is the one that takes the most time while playing.
And even the feature that allows you to multiply your army is available only in one game modality, the Frontline.
We can say that this is the modality that is closer to the ads, but it’s only a secondary one.
So, if you expect to only play in that modality, you may be disappointed.
Last War Survival: Monetization Strategy
Unlike the majority of mobile games, Last War Survival has no in-game ads, but monetizes only through IAPs.
Though this may seem surprising, it’s actually common in midcore games.
This is because the main goal of midcore games is player retention, and they tend to monetize over a longer period of time. So, adding too many ads in the game can have the opposite effect.
Last War Survival monetizes almost every aspect of the game: progress, expansion, skills, in-game currency.
And while it’s a free game, it can sometimes feel that IAPs are needed in order to progress.
For example, the fights between the soldiers and the zombies get increasingly more difficult – and that’s natural – but there are cases where you must upgrade your characters to win.
The upgrades can either happen through in-app currency, or you can buy new and more powerful characters to add to your army.
Overall, the monetization strategy in Last War Survival is quite smart.
The game lures you in with a small purchase, like $0.99 or $1.99, that brings great value, such as a powerful character.
Then, it progressively presents small transactions at the right time to keep you spending.
These small offers are paired with bigger bundles, aimed at players who are willing to invest more money in the game.
Last War Survival: User Acquisition Strategy
When it comes to user acquisition, FUNFLY advertises its game mainly on social media, and it makes great use of UGC content.
The main concept at the basis of the ad campaigns is that “the game looks just like the ads”.
This hook was also used in a popular TikTok ad campaign starring actor Antony Starr (famous as Homelander in The Boys).
In these ads, we see the actor playing the game and reinforcing the fact that the game and the ads match, though we’ve already seen that this is only partially true.
@antonystarrgifs Another version from Antony‘s ad for Last War Survival game #antonystarr #lastwarsurvival #homelander ♬ original sound – antonystarrgifs
Besides these UGC campaigns, there are also campaigns that show the gameplay in an exaggerated and almost fake way.
Though it is not entirely correct to use the term fake ads, they may appear slightly deceptive, and may attract casual players while the game isn’t a casual one.
Why Is Last War So Popular?
To answer this question, we need to go back to the Alliances we’ve mentioned earlier.
The peculiarity of this game is the social aspect of it.
People who enter an Alliance become part of a group and get a sense of belonging from it.
Just take a look at this comment from a Reddit user, who referred to their Alliance as a “second family”.
Browsing the game Subreddit, we’ve seen several posts talking about how the game is ruining family relationships, because these players spend too much time on it.
Though this may be one-off cases, they shed some light on the triggers behind the game.
Last War combines:
- A smart monetization strategy, which pushes you to spend a little money often.
- The pressure of belonging to a group and conforming to it. So if everyone in the Alliance is spending time and money in the game, you see it as more acceptable.
Another interesting aspect of the game is that the duties of belonging to an Alliance can make it almost addictive, thus triggering a loop of both constant logins and spending.
Last War Survival: Final Thoughts
Now you know all the secrets behind Last War Survival’s success!
The game wins because it’s able to attract high-spending players, the so-called “whales”, but it’s also engaging for players who enjoy games with longer progression.
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