Clash Royale is a real-time strategymobile game incorporating elements from collectible card games, multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs) and tower defense. Players compete with one another in battles where the aim is to destroy the opponent's towers and defend their own.[9] In the core game mode, players battle 1v1 to gain trophies and progress across different themed arenas where new cards and features are gradually unlocked.[10] Once players reach a high enough level of trophies, ranked mode is unlocked, which is more competitively focused. It is split into 7 leagues: Master I, Master II, Master III, Champion, Grand Champion, Royal Champion, and Ultimate Champion.[11][12]
Battles take place in an arena where each player has three towers, one king tower and two princess towers.[13][14][a] The arena is split into two halves by a river in the middle of the screen; bridges on the left and right create two lanes where players can focus their attacks.[9][16] Each player has a deck of eight cards, four of which appear in their hand at any one time.[17] Cards can be played from a player's hand onto the arena by spending elixir, which is replenished passively over time to a maximum of 10 elixir.[18]
When placed onto the arena, troops move forwards towards the opponent's towers; some target opponent's troops on the way whilst others will charge directly to attack the tower.[10] However, the princess towers will shoot arrows at approaching troops on their side of the river, dealing damage over time.[18] When a princess tower is destroyed, or if the king tower takes any damage, then the king tower becomes active and will also begin shooting nearby enemy troops.[citation needed] In addition to troops, a player's cards can include defensive buildings and spells that can be placed anywhere in the arena to cause a given affect (usually causing damage to an opponent's troops, buildings and towers).[14][17] A player's territory, the area where they can place their troops and buildings, is the bottom half of their screen, while their opponent's territory occupies the top half. If a player destroys an opponent's tower, then they gain the ability to place their troops into parts of their opponent's territory on the other side of the river.[14][17]
Battles can last up to three minutes in normal time, with elixir generation doubling in the last minute. A player wins by destroying the opponent's king tower or by destroying more towers than their opponent by the end of normal time. If both players have destroyed the same number of towers in the first three minutes, the game continues into overtime and the first player to destroy another tower wins.[19] If neither player destroys a tower within two minutes of overtime, a tiebreaker occurs and the player with the lowest health tower loses.[14] The last minute of overtime has tripled elixir generation.[20]
Deck-building is an important element of strategy in Clash Royale.[9][21] Between battles, players can choose any eight cards in their collection to make up their deck.[10][22] Cards can be collected from chests gained by winning battles, bought directly from an in-game shop, or by joining clans where players can request cards from their clanmates. As players collect more cards, they can use them and in-game currency to increase the level of their cards. Upgrading cards also increases players' "King Level", the level of their account that also contributes to the strength of their towers.[10][14] The level of cards is an important consideration when building a deck, since higher level cards are stronger, but players must also consider the synergy between cards in their collection. Strategy within battles varies depending on the deck, but generally consists of spending elixir efficiently to maintain an elixir lead over an opponent, precise placement and timing when playing cards, and keeping track of the cards and elixir available to an opponent at any given time.[14][23]
Other game modes
Throughout its development, many different game modes have been added to Clash Royale. For example, the ability to team up with friends or be matched up with other players online is available in 2v2 battles.[14][24] Various permanent and temporary challenges and events have been added to the game. Players enter challenges by paying a small fee using in-game currency, and can win more prizes the more wins they achieve before losing three battles. Variations include the draft challenge, in which players are presented with a series of choices between two cards to draft into their deck before each battle, and various events added to celebrate the introduction of new cards and features.[14][25]
Initially added in April 2018, Clan Wars allowed players to work together as a clan to battle other clans. This was replaced with Clan Wars 2 in August 2020. The mode requires players to build four separate decks without any overlapping cards,[14] which are used to engage in battles and destroy competing clans' defences.[26] Merge Tactics was added as a new permanent game mode in July 2025. It uses the characters from Clash Royale in a new four-player, turn-based game mode. Players pick units to deploy and combine them to make them stronger before sending them into automatic battles, with gameplay comparable to Rush Royale.[27][28]
Clash Royale regularly includes limited-time game modes. In March 2018, for the game's two-year anniversary, a new mode called "Retro Royale" was added for a limited time that allowed only cards from the game's soft launch to be used.[29] The game-mode was temporarily re-added in March 2025, this time limiting players to only use cards available in the game in 2017.[30] In June 2024, a limited time game mode was added introducing the Goblin Queen, replacing the central King Tower. As goblin-themed cards are played, the Queen's ability charges up, culminating with the release of several Goblin Babies across the opponent's side of the arena. Progression in this game mode followed a similar trophy climb as the primary game mode.[31][32] In November 2024, a limited time ranked 2v2 game mode was added, allowing players to team up and play competitively against other teams.[33] In February 2025, the ranked 2v2 game mode was re-added for a limited amount of time.[34]
Development and release
Clash Royale was developed by Supercell, a Finnish game company known for the mobile games Clash of Clans, Hay Day (both released in 2012), and Boom Beach (2014).[35] The concept for the game came from a prototype called The Summoners that had been developed prior to the release of Clash of Clans, but was abandoned due to the difficulty of developing a real-timeplayer versus player (PvP) mobile game.[36] Development of Clash Royale began in 2014, initially with an original fantasy setting and later coming to be set in the world of Clash of Clans.[37]
While Clash of Clans had primarily been designed to be played on larger, horizontal tablet screens, Clash Royale was made to be played on mobile phones.[37][38] It was one of the first real-time PvP games for mobile.[citation needed]
Clash Royale was soft-launched in Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, and New Zealand for iOS on January 4, 2016.[39][40] It was soft-launched on Android for those same countries on February 16, 2016.[41] Both platforms received a global release on March 2, 2016.[42] The game launched for PC globally on October 22, 2023, during the roll-out of Google Play Games' PC beta launch.[43]
Upon its release, Clash Royale became the most downloaded and top-grossing app on the U.S. iOS App Store.[44]
Clash Royale received generally favorable reviews from critics according to review aggregator website Metacritic.[45] Reviewers praised the game's blend of different genres and mechanics,[9][46] and the way Supercell simplified these disparate elements to create a game well-suited for mobile.[4][22][48]
Battles were described as accessible and intuitive, but hiding a surprising depth of strategy and complex decision-making.[b] Their short length and fast pace were also praised.[22][48][13][46] Harry Slater of Pocket Gamer enjoyed the flow of battles, with the increasing elixir generation in the last minute leading to "a frantic final scramble".[13]Game Informer's Daniel Tack likewise enjoyed the "fun, fast" gameplay, finding it so addictive that "[a] quick five minute session can expand to eat an hour with terrifying ease".[46]
Jordan Minor, writing for PCMag UK, praised the game's production values and the "cartoony" visuals that he felt were "full of cheery personality".[9] Tommaso Pugliese of Multiplayer.it also enjoyed the colorful art style and praised the variety of units available.[49] The game's matchmaking system garnered mixed reactions. Tack felt the system worked well[46] but Matt Thrower of Pocket Tactics complained it would sometimes place players against opponents with higher-level cards.[22]
The monetisation strategy, including the use of timers on chests that could be skipped by purchasing in-game currency, was received more negatively. Thrower argued it put up a paywall for success and ultimately "made what could have been a truly great game into merely a very good one."[22] Minor complained that the timers meant the game "goes out of its way to prevent you from playing it",[9] while Nick Gillet, for The Guardian, likened the game's free-to-play model to "[shaking] you down for change".[50] Some reviewers were less negative, such as TouchArcade's Eli Hodapp, who argued that rewards from chests are less important than progressing into new arenas, which is free.[4] Craig Grannell, writing for Stuff, felt that although some would find chest timers restrictive, it helped him limit his playtime to a reasonable amount per day.[47]
Championships
Clash Royale League
Mugi (left) vs Pedro (right) in the Clash Royale League 2023 World Finals
The Clash Royale League was the official team esportsworld championship on a league format, developed by Supercell. It consisted of 5 leagues: North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and China. Season 1 started on August 20, 2018. After fifteen games per team during the regular season, playoffs were held in each region, after which the World Finals were held in Tokyo, Japan. The finalists in 2018 consisted of Nova Esports (China), KingZone Dragon-X (Asia), Vivo Keyd (Latin America), Team Queso (Europe), Immortals (North America), and Ponos Sports from Japan. Ponos achieved second in Asia and qualified for the World Finals due to Japan's host status. A seeding tournament ranked the teams. The top two teams from the seeding tournament received a bye and automatically qualified for the semifinals. The 2018 World Champions were Nova Esports.[51]
The second edition saw Team Liquid defeat SK Gaming by 1 HP in the semifinals, widely regarded as the best Clash Royale match.[52] Team Liquid then went on to defeat W.EDGM to claim the world title.
In 2020, the pandemic forced all but two Chinese teams to play from home.
After the 2020 season, the format was changed from team competition to individual competition.[53] The 2021 World Finals was held online.
The 2022-2024 World Finals were held in conjunction with the Clash of Clans World Championship in Helsinki, Finland, the location of Supercell headquarters.[54][55] In 2024, Supercell held Superfest, an event encompassing the beforementioned tournaments with the addition of the Brawl Stars World Finals.[56][57]
The Clash Royale Crown Championship was the official esports world championship of the game in 2017, developed by Supercell.[75] The tournament saw the best players all over the world from North America, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and more compete. The first edition had over 28 million participants from around the world, becoming the world's largest Clash Royale event.[76] The first world champion was Sergio Ramos who beat MusicMaster by three games to one on the Crown Championship World Finals.[77] In the 2017 Crown Championship in London, the top 16 players in the world competed for a $400,000 prize pool.[78] The Clash Royale Crown Championship was discontinued and replaced by the Clash Royale League in 2018.[79]
Clash Royale was part of an esport demonstration event during the 2018 Asian Games held in Indonesia. Eight countries are able to participate after having qualified from their respective regional qualification with Indonesia automatically qualified as host.[81]
↑"AESF Game Result"(PDF). Asian Electronic Sports Federation. July 11, 2018. Archived from the original(PDF) on August 31, 2018. Retrieved July 11, 2018.
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