Top 10 Hypercasual Games in Q4 2021
2021 has already become a part of history, but there are still some results that should be summarised: such as changes in the hypercasual games segment in the last quarter of the year.
— by Diana Levintova
2021 has already become a part of history, but there are still some results that should be summarised. First things first, let’s look at the changes in hypercasual genre that happened in fourth quarter of the year.
As the last time we used our Market Segment Comparison tool in order to look at the general dynamic in the genre. We found out that the market has grown by 13.5% compared to the third quarter, reaching 4.58В of total downloads in the last three months of 2021. Way to go, taking into consideration the 14% decline in the previous period.
Afterward, we moved to the Market Segment dashboard in order to find out new titles that have jumped up in the top-100 games by downloads.
Traditionally we can see some old-timers here, such as Bridge Race and Hair Challenge - hits of the first half of the year. However, there are several new names we’d like to highlight.
We all remember a big boom of games based on the “Squid Game” series that were released in the middle of September. Most of them haven't found their audience or shined quickly and faded. However, there are two titles that managed to stick around in the last quarter of 2021: Cookie Carver: Life Challenger and 420 Prison Survival (456: Survival Game), which gained 46M and 33M of downloads respectively. We won’t stop here to describe these games, instead, we invite you to read about the “Squid Game” phenomenon and all of the most successful apps related to the show (including two aforementioned) here.
Let’s rather take a closer look at the number one in our top by downloads - Race Master 3D - Car Racing. As you can see on the graph, the game hasn’t had any peaks during the reviewed period (and, actually, during all the periods of its existence - since the end of April 2021) - the number of downloads was quite persistent through the months. The game itself is quite traditional racing, without any extraordinary meta. However, let us note here that the quality of races is on the comparatively high level for hypercasual genre.
Let’s now move to the Yes or No?! - Food Pranks. The game took 6th place in our top with 34M of downloads for the period, peaking towards the end of October. What is interesting about it, is that the game is basically a collection of various HC-subgenres: pranks, antistress, exchange of anti-stress toys, as well as modest meta with the room setting.
Another and the last game we would like to highlight is Merge Animals 3D - Mutant Race. The game closes our top with 32.5M of downloads for the last quarter of 2021. Itself Merge Animals 3D - Mutant Race is a scroller with the editor of the character: a player can mix genes of various animals and, then, participate in the races with obstacles. Depending on the genes the speed of overcoming the obstacles varies. Overall, we haven’t yet seen the identical games, however, there are quite a lot of apps with the tracks, obstacles and adaptation of the character on the market.