Summoners War Chronicles Dethrones World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV as the #1 MMORPG of 2023

If I didn’t confirm this via a variety of different sources, I wouldn’t have believed it were true. Or, even possible, that a new free to play MMO of arguably reduced quality to either WoW or Final Fantasy XIV could dethrone not only 1, but both in terms of monthly active players.
Yet here we are. In a world I couldn’t envision a mere month ago. One where the two titans of the genre have been humiliated by.. well, an MMO that makes Tower of Fantasy feel like Elden Ring.

Summoners War Chronicles is a brand new cross-platform MMORPG, much like Tower of Fantasy, GRAN SAGA or ODIN: Valhalla Rising. It has a large, open world split and segregated by loading screens, much like Final Fantasy XIV or Guild Wars 2.
You pick from 1 of 3 very uninspired classes, create a character with a highly limiting character creator, and then proceed to play through – admittedly, a very light, very fun story. And not fun because you enjoy it, fun because you spend most the cutscenes lauching at the horribly cringe dialogue, voice acting, or sequences as a whole.

I played through approximately 17 hours of the game over the last 2 weeks in an attempt to gather an accurate impression of the title – and I’ll have my full, dedicated thoughts up at some point next week.
But today, we’re here to discuss when the game released, its numbers, and what continues to motivate so many players to log in and play it day after day.

Summoners War was a mobile game released back in 2014. It continues to make upwards of $10 million dollars every single month, and is one of the most popular, highest grossing Gacha games around the world. It was only natural that they would want to expand their reach into other genres.
Summoners War Chronicles was revealed to be in active development back in February 2017, but released 6 years later, Globally, in March 2023.
The game launched on March 9th, and on March 10th – the following day, the devs made an announcement on the official website stating that Summoners War Chronicles topped the Global charts across various platforms and markets within 24 hours of its release.
This is a pretty big achievement – very few Gacha games manage to top the Global charts, given the competition present. Players were given various items as rewards for their accomplishment.
And while topping the charts doesn’t require monolithic numbers proportional to their competition, Summoners War Chronicles absolutely destroyed all expectations, with 5 million players having downloaded and logged into the game over a 4-day period, marked by another announcement over on their website.
“5 million Global Summoners” were playing worldwide. 3 days later, 7 days after release, the devs confirmed there were over 1 million daily active players, with reportedly numbers continuing to scale week after week. This makes sense, of course.
The game just launched, and is topping the charts. Naturally there’s going to be a lot of interest in the game. Again, all of this was confirmed via their website, and additional rewards were given out as a thank you from the devs after each milestone.

5 million players, with an average of over 1 million daily players logging in to play each day is an absurdly monstrous number for a new MMORPG.
Now it is worth noting that PC statistics weren’t disclosed in these numbers. When they claimed Summoners War Chronicles topped the Global charts, they were referring specifically to the Google Play Store, and Apple App Store.
This game was released for PC, Android and iOS devices, but the vast majority of players interested in cross-platform titles prefer to play them on their phones, due to ease of access.
With this in mind, it’s safe to assume the final numbers were even higher, given the game peaked at almost 40,000 players concurrently on Steam, and even today, peaked at almost 30,000 – over a month later.
This average puts Summoners War Chronicles in the top 50 most popular games on Steam. Almost averaging the same numbers as Final Fantasy XIV and New World via Steam alone – an accomplishment that is by no means an easy feat to achieve.
Steam reviewers have also been incredibly kind, putting the game at “Very Positive” based off of 7,171 reviews.

What has caused this gargantuan influx of players to bombard their servers?
Honestly, after having put almost 20 hours into the game, it’s not actually bad. That doesn’t inherently make it good – not by any stretch of the imagination.
But the game looks pretty good – it has a very Ni no Kuni feel to it. Offers a pretty flat, but quality Anime aesthetic. The combat was surprisingly good and had some great quality special effects.
And being forced to play the game for the first few hours as opposed to relying on an auto-feature was great. However when do mobile MMOs ever allow for that indefinitely? Never. At some point I unlocked auto-combat, and the game proceeded to bore me into quitting a couple days later.
But the target demographic of these types of games rely on auto-play, on auto-pathing, auto-combat to actually play the game for them. Mobile MMOs have these ridiculous investments necessary to be competitive, and letting the game grind for you – so you don’t have to, allows for players to work, or play games that are actually fun to invest time into.
There is no shortage of mobile gamers in this day and age, and many of them like the allure of playing an MMO. While I don’t believe any mobile MMO truly captures what makes a real MMO – a PC MMO – a worthwhile game to play, I can’t deny these cheap knockoffs don’t serve a purpose.
They’re the equivalent of a nicotine patch. A weak, diluted fix that doesn’t feel the same, but might be enough to not leave you craving for more.

Much like its predecessor, Summoners War, this is a Gacha game. And as such, with the numbers they’ve achieved, you have no doubt they’re banking in the tens of millions – easy. Various sources speculate 2-week earnings to be at a minimum of $20 million dollars across mobile alone.
With a combined total across every platform, including the additional 2 weeks not accounted for, possibly breaking $50 million dollars, almost double what Tower of Fantasy made during its launch month.
With numbers absolutely dominating Tower of Fantasy, and by extention, every mobile, cross-platform, or even PC exclusive MMORPG, Summoners War Chronicles has become the most popular, most successful MMORPG on every major platform right now, with millions of active players, and tens of millions of dollars in earnings.
While I don’t foresee this remaining a constant over the next few months, it’s shocking that a new free to play title like this has managed to amass the following that it has.
And it deserves it. It is a step above its competition. Minus the auto-combat, which I’m not fond of, but allowed me to grind a little while I was editing videos or working out.

Again, I’ll have a dedicated video on Summoners War Chronicles up at some point next week, covering my general thoughts of the game and everything I experienced.
But it’s about time we see a little more competition in the genre. The next few years are gonna be interesting, for sure.