Supercell has revealed a major update to Squad Busters, the team-building online action title fronted by a host of characters from across the Supercell lineup. This major update is an overhaul of sorts, permanently adjusting how the core gameplay loop works based on critical feedback from the community, which numbers 60 million players.
This transformative update will give players more agency to impact their experience, and it’ll encourage more strategic thinking, which fits nicely into the wheelhouse of more experienced players.
Forever Changed
In a press release, Supercell revealed the Squad Busters changes, which sees Hero characters introduced, flanked by Squaddies that give them unique power-ups and abilities. Players will now be required to pick a Hero from an array of super-charged Squad Busters characters and link them with Squaddies.
While the Hero characters are powerful enough to hold their own with some stellar abilities, Squaddies turn the tide by bolstering the Hero fighters and bringing their own moves to the table.
Johnathan Rowlands, the head of Squad Busters, said:
It’s been almost 12 months since Squad Busters launched globally and the team has learned a tonne thanks to the passionate feedback from our players. For example, many players have asked for morestrategic decision-making before and during battles. We’re also starting to give players adeeper sense of the game’s lore and how that relates to the new Heroes and Squaddies.
Getting to this point has meant many months of experimentation, all the while running the live game. So, a big shout out to the team, who have shown immense commitment to evolve Squad Busters into an experience that remains accessible but now offers a deeper strategic layer.
In an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the new Squad Busters update, I learned that this update was conceptualised in November 2024, and prototypes were outlined in January 2025. Leaning on the inspiration from the comeback of Brawl Stars, the Squad Busters team desired to take risks to recover from some ‘mistakes’ made at launch.
By that, the team explained that they felt they had a game that could appeal to multiple audiences: casual, core, and hardcore, but that wasn’t realised when Squad Busters was released in May 2024. They’re now ready to market more specifically to experienced mobile gamers with this latest update.
The team also stressed that this major overhaul won’t impact the free-to-play operating model, as they know not everyone wants to dip into their pockets for microtransaction fees, and they’ve ‘looked at it very closely and balanced it as such that everyone can enjoy it.’
This major update is live now for Squad Busters players worldwide.
Are you excited to learn about the ‘next generation’ of Supercell’s Squad Busters? Let me know on the Insider Gaming forum.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
More from Grant Taylor-Hill
The Update is trash! It ruined the game and made it basically Brawl Stars 2.0. You can’t move as the turbo has been removed to next to nothing, so your squad runs like cold molasses dripping down a wall. Your characters get busted super easy and early by aggressive players. Ultimately this update ruined the game. It was chaos at high speed, kinda like a demolition derby, or any battle scene from Braveheart… but now it’s something I will never play again and I’ve been playing since day one!