A lot of gamers often check if a game is dead or dying because they do not want to invest their time and money into those games. The same thing is happening with Rise of Kingdoms, where players are concerned about the game’s health and if it is dying. So, in this article, we will analyze the game’s current state to address this burning question.
Analyzing the Current State and Future Prospects of Rise of Kingdoms
Continuous Development by Lilith Games
One of the crucial things is the continuous development of Rise of Kingdoms. It is a clear indicator that the game is doing well. Lilith Games would stop adding new commanders, events, and KVK formats if the game were dying and they were not profiting from it. They are constantly trying to improve the game, and they are doing a decent job.
Next year, it will be big for Rise of Kingdoms and the reason is that the game will get insane and big updates. In these updates, the whole map will be different, and older commanders will also get new designs. This is great news because the current map looks so outdated. Check out the YouTube video if you are interested in seeing what they are changing.
Data from Google Trends
Google Trends is a tool from Google where you can analyze the frequency of search queries across various regions and languages. Over the past five years, since its release in May 2018, the search trends for “Rise of Kingdoms” reveal a fascinating journey.
As you can see from the image, you will notice that the game is doing well. Most mobile games die in the first year of release, or they keep a small number of players. What is important is that after 2023, the popularity of Rise of Kingdoms remained robust, consistently above its pre-pandemic baseline.
This trend is a strong indicator that the game is not just surviving but thriving, continually attracting new players. The geographical spread of the game’s popularity also provides insight.
Our Site’s Data
Analyzing our site data, we can clearly see that the game is doing well. Players are still searching for beginner guides, the best civilizations for new players, and a talent tree for epic commanders. This indicates that the game still gets new players every day. You can also check out app.sensortower.com, where you will see that the game had 300,000 downloads without major updates, which is not bad.
Rise of Kingdoms Ads: There are still a lot of advertisements for the game, which is great, and if the game were dying, they would not spend so much money on it.
Reasons Why People Think It’s a Dead Game
We understand that a lot of players think that Rise of Kingdoms is a dying game or that they have signs on their kingdom, but those signs are false.
The game is old: Yes, games are now more than 5 years old. The majority of games die in that period of time, especially mobile games, which die in the first year after release. That is not true with Rise of Kingdoms. As we can see from continuous updates and Google trends, these are clear indicators that the game is doing well.
Dead kingdoms: One of the major reasons is dead kingdoms. There are a lot of dead kingdoms in Rise of Kingdoms, especially older kingdoms. The reason for their kingdom dying is that the majority of people migrated to new kingdoms that are doing KVK 2 and KVK 3, which are the best ones.
Also, there are a lot of kingdoms where players do not care about fighting in KVK and doing team events; they are there just to farm and enjoy the game and events. ROK is quite time-consuming, especially during KVK, but the majority of people simply do not have time to fight and play the game 24/7. They just log in, do events and quests, and send gatherers.
If your kingdom is dead, you should migrate to a more active kingdom. There are a lot of different discord communities where kingdom leaders always recruit active players.
Release of Call of Dragons: There is a new game called Call of Dragons from Lilith Games, which is one additional reason. A lot of Rise of Kingdoms players took a break and started playing Call of Dragons. That does not mean that they quit; they will eventually come back. They are in farming mode.
Friends quitting the game: It is natural that some people will quit the game. Some of those people are your friends. Even if they quit, it is not the reason that the game is dying. I had a lot of friends in the game who simply quit, but they came back after a few months, some even after years. So, players tend to take breaks or simply do not have time to play. Even I took a 3-month break.
YouTubers quitting: Some people believe that the game is dead or dying because some Rise of Kingdoms content creators stopped creating videos and guides. Their quitting has nothing to do with the game’s player base. They simply get bored, tired, or do not have time to create content. There are many content creators that are growing each day.
What Can Kill Rise of Kingdoms?
The only thing that can kill Rise of Kingdoms is too much pay-to-win, which is increasing each year. The first big difference between free-to-play and pay-to-win players was KVK crystals, and now with Armaments. This is incredibly bad.
They are releasing new commanders too fast (which is dangerous), so free-to-play players simply cannot keep up with pay-to-win. It is nice that the game is getting new commanders, but they should not be overpowered.
Almost all the new commanders that they are releasing are simply overpowered, so pay-to-win players invest in them. If they release commanders that have the same power as some older ones or slightly better, nobody would be against that, and it would make the game more playable.
Tier 5 troop healing is too expensive, and they have to reduce it by some percentage. The reason for this is that free-to-play players simply cannot fight in KVK because they fill up their hospitals, and now they have nothing to do because they have no way to heal their troops. Keep in mind that not all players have time to have and manage 10 farm accounts.
Tier 6 troops can kill Rise of Kingdoms fast. Hopefully, they will not release Tier 6 troops, but if they do in the current state of the game, the game will die instantly.
How to Bring New and Old Players Back and Prevent the Game from Dying
There are a lot of ways that Lilith can bring in more new players and get old ones back. Here are my and other players’ opinions and ideas that would drastically improve the health of the game and bring a lot of players back.
Reduce the Pay-to-Win and Free-to-Play Gap: Stop releasing overpowered commanders and do not release them too often. Remove formations and armaments or drastically increase the way of getting them so free-to-play players can have them (they are the reason why a lot of players quit the game).
Reduce the healing of units.
Free to Play Ark of Osiris: Create a free-to-play Ark of Osiris where players will have access to all commanders and gear. Overall, there are so many ways to reduce the gap between pay-to-win and free-to-play players.
Implement some kind of catch-up system: New players simply quit when they see how long it takes to upgrade buildings, research all tech, get decent gear, etc. One example is the Books of Covenant which are a problem for new players from the start of the game. They still did not fix it.
Bring Test Servers: Get test servers where players can test features and new events before they are released in the game.
Reduce the cost of older commanders: They should reduce the cost of older commanders.
Redesign game maps: They are working on this, but they should implement it as soon as possible because game maps look so outdated compared to new city-building games.
Commander Reset: Old players have a lot of commanders that they do not use because they are out of meta and are simply underpowered compared to new commanders. They should implement a system to get refunds for commander sculptures. It does not need to be a whole amount of sculptures that cost the max commander, but half of it would be great. This will help free-to-play players get new commanders faster, and it will drastically reduce the gap between pay-to-win and free-to-play players.
Debunking Myths and Looking Towards the Future of Rise of Kingdoms
People have been saying for the last 3 years that Rise of Kingdoms is a dead game or that it is dying, which is not true. Rise of Kingdoms is not dead, and it’s not dying. Currently, it has a healthy player base, and it is increasing, but that can drastically change in the next year or two, especially if they do not fix the gap between free-to-play and pay-to-win players. Also, they have to make the game more beginner-friendly and give all their efforts to bring in more players.
Overall, Rise of Kingdoms is a great game with an even greater community. There are a lot of personal opinions in this article, so if there is some part where I am wrong, feel free to comment down below so we can discuss. Also, feel free to share your opinion and something that you would love to see Lilith Games implement or change in the game.