New year, new ideas, new energy? Well, kind of… This month’s update sees some new successes, with The New York Times launching a new standalone Scrabble game, Crossplay, and a strong debut from a new casual life sim/adventure game, Heartopia. But mostly, January saw evolution over revolution.
We did see the addition of some interesting minigames to existing titles, including a couple of fishing-themed ones, plus a rhythm-action minigame added to the popular Marvel Contest of Champions.
Following on from its December narrative-driven event, the memorably named ‘Who peed in the pool?’, Brawl Stars saw plenty of updates as its Steampunk-themed season 46 kicked off, and included a substantive reworking of its Brawl Pass framework and rewards. Meanwhile, titles like Zen Match and Gossip Harbor experimented with structural meta changes, reshaping how players progress and engage over the long term.
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at how these updates played out across casual and midcore titles this month.
January’s casual game updates
Zen Match updated its meta by replacing the room-decoration system with a task-based island exploration layer. This update introduced stamina, a new currency, and gated progression, aligning the game with the adventure meta framework used in the publisher’s broader portfolio.
The new meta raises questions about its long-term fit with the game’s “zen” theme, but it didn’t seem to significantly affect downloads or revenue in January.
NYT Games launched Crossplay, a standalone Scrabble-style multiplayer word game promoted within the main NYT Games app and integrated with the existing account system. The game features asynchronous, turn-based competitive play and currently offers very limited features, with no direct monetization.
By separating Crossplay from its core daily puzzle app, NYT can experiment with social, competitive gameplay without risking disrupting the established solo experience, while still leveraging its existing audience for low-friction acquisition. The app is experiencing strong user acquisition momentum, currently ranking 3rd in the US Free charts.
Popular merge-2-puzzle game Gossip Harbor from Microfun introduced Medal Challenges, a new long-format (i.e., longer than the one month that we typically see in games) meta task event layer that reframes how players engage with Gossip Harbor’s events.
Medal Challenges offers players a grid of parallel challenges linked to both permanent gameplay objectives and rotating live events, letting players progress multiple objectives at once and choose their focus. Completing individual challenges earns medals toward overall progression, turning separate activities into a unified, long-term goal.
Challenges tied to concurrent events serve as a player-facing schedule, highlighting upcoming content and encouraging repeat logins. Medal accumulation drives all activity toward a shared Grand Prize. This shift from short task sessions to a season-style loop reinforces player anticipation and participation.
Supercell’s Hay Day launched its first guild task event, Neighborhood Nurture, where players collaborate within their neighborhood to earn collective rewards. Players complete personal tasks to contribute points, unlocking rewards as the neighborhood reaches milestones. The event introduced two new reward types: an upgradable decorative tree with multiple growth stages and the Double Product Perk, which offers a chance to produce two items instead of one.
Additional casual gaming highlights and news
Heartopia from XD Inc. is a new multiplayer life simulation/adventure game with open-world exploration, available also on PC. Players can freely explore the map, customize their characters and homes, and engage in simulation activities such as fishing, cooking, farming, bug-catching, and hugging pets. It is also a very social game, with the opportunity to co-op build with friends and engage in multiple activities together (such as taking selfies, drinking coffee, and more).
The monetization focus lies on the cosmetic gacha economy. It had a strong start, hitting the top spot in the Download charts and 173 in the Top Grossing chart right after launch (peaking at #68 in Grossing on Feb 1st). Revenues have remained strong throughout the month, even as download volume has slightly cooled.
January’s midcore game updates
If you ever felt that there were not enough fishing minigames included in 4X games, January was the month for you, as two popular games got a fishy addition.
- Dark War: Survival introduced its first standalone fishing tournament as part of a themed overarching event called Wilderness Fishing. The event is built around a dedicated fishing mini-game that channels directly into a battle pass progression track, a collectable album system, a competitive leaderboard, and a dedicated event shop that allows players to exchange their earned shop currency for rewards.
- Fishing points earned from each catch let players advance through fixed battle pass tiers with both free and premium track rewards, while newly discovered fish types are permanently recorded in an aquarium-style collectables album that rewards higher-star catches and long-term completion. At the same time, total points feed into a server-wide leaderboard that tiered ranking rewards to the top fishermen. Players can upgrade their fishing rods and use different bait types to improve efficiency, depth range, and catch value, adding a light progression meta to the core loop.
- High Seas Hero introduced the Fishing Fun event, featuring a fishing minigame, an event shop for purchasing items with event currency, customizable backgrounds, a high-score leaderboard, an event battle pass, and special offers. The event includes a pet mechanic, where a cat accompanies the player and requests specific fish. Fulfilling the cat’s requests grants additional rewards, known as Fish Tokens, which can be used in the event shop.
Marvel Contest of Champions added a rhythm game event mode, Concert of Champions, as part of the Dimensional Arcade minigames, which are designed to evoke the feel of a retro video games arcade – hence the name.
Concert of Champions is a beat-em-up rhythm game where enemies approach from the sides of the screen. Players must perform the correct actions in sequence as prompts reach the target area, similar to traditional rhythm games.
In this minigame, players can tap, long-press, or swipe up and down to defeat enemies. The challenge comes from managing the number of enemies and identifying the correct input. Failing to defeat an enemy results in damage to the player’s hit points.
In this minigame, players control Dazzler, challenging you to progress through four stages with unique enemies and aesthetics. Similar games include One Finger Death Punch, which is more visually intense but uses comparable mechanics.
Brawl Stars: Season 46: Steampunk introduced a full Brawl Pass rework. The recurring pass framework now includes a Keys + Vault system on top of the usual linear layers, shifting progression from solely fixed rewards to a more player’s choice aspect across Buffies, Seasonal Skins, Brawlers & Resources.
Keys earned from the linear track are divided into four categories, which players use in the Vault to select preferred rewards. Seasonal skin sets have doubled and are now Vault-exclusive, with no skins available from the linear track. Pass progression has expanded to 60 tiers, and additional Mega Quests have been introduced.
The rework also introduced new type of drops called Chaos Drops, which can split into multiple drops of the same rarity when opened. Following these changes, Premium pricing increased to $8.99 for BP and $12.99 for BP Plus.
Additional midcore gaming highlights and news
Arknights: Endfield is an open-world ARPG with factory-building mechanics and serves as a spinoff to the original Arknights. The game experienced a strong launch across major markets, with mobile performance tapering post-launch but maintaining high player interest on PC.
The factory building is the game’s main selling point and connects to almost every gameplay element. Players use factory building to create gear, solve open-world puzzles, build zip lines for faster travel, and construct turrets to assist in combat. Players directly alter the game world by building transmission towers, zip lines, and mining facilities, although factories can only be constructed in designated areas.
