Subway Surfers: Lessons from the world's most downloaded game

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Tuesday 18th January 2022

SYBO

Unity

In the almost 10 years since it first launched, Subway Surfers hasn't just enjoyed truly phenomenal success. It has equally set the standard for what mobile games as live, maintained entities can be.

That's true creatively, commercially, technically -- and even in terms of the positive cultural impact the endless runner hopes to leave with its players. That means there's a great deal other studios and publishers can learn from a look at the story behind Subway Surfers' many achievements.

Frequent and thoughtful updates sit at the heart of Subway Surfers' wild popularity, with the recently deployed North Pole 2021 holiday content marking the 137th edition of the Subway Surfers World Tour series. That's an update schedule with a typical turnaround cycle of between three and four weeks. While that may sound a little terrifying to some developers, SYBO has much in place to make sure both the frequency and quality needed are absolutely achievable.

But before we get into why that matters, it's worth considering just how successful SYBO and co-developer Kiloo's game has been. As of August 2020, Subway Surfers had been downloaded over three billion times in total -- a considerable percentage of the planet's 7.8 billion total residents. And at the last count, it stood as the most downloaded mobile game of the past decade.

"We have been adapting and evolving Subway Surfers while keeping the nostalgia feel that makes this game one-of-a kind."

Mathias Gredal Nørvig, SYBO

Importantly, from its original conception, the game -- which uses the Unity engine -- was designed with a frequent update process in mind. That is how it has continued to attract and beguile players through almost a