Successfully evolve hypercasual into hybrid-casual games

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Thursday 16th June 2022

The hypercasual game genre is both growing and evolving.

Gamers are naturally attracted to the accessibility of traditional hypercasual games, which have an easy-to-understand core gameplay loop and simple tap or swipe controls.

Hypercasual growth is impressive - leading game downloads in 2021 with a 46% year-on-year increase over other genres (Source: App Annie, The State of Mobile Gaming 2022). Yet as the market matures and gamers have more choice,developers are looking for new ways to increase player retention, engagement and revenue.

The opportunity? A new style of play that blends casual core gameplay and midcore game features for a more deeply engaging game. Enter hybrid-casual games.

At Meta, we see many of our hypercasual partners move toward hybrid-casual. Developers are interested in the genre's wide reach, easy-to-play game mechanics, and the ability to monetize like hypercasual and midcore games. Let's dive into the new genre further.

Hybrid-casual is a relatively new style of mobile game that incorporates the simplicity of hypercasual gameplay with more sophisticated progression mechanics that also appeal to mid-core audiences.

Hybrid-casual mixes a variety of different elements from hypercasual, such as design and production, additional gameplay content, balanced monetization best practices and live operation activities.

Many developers are making a transition to hybrid-casual to have the wide audience of a casual game, as well as the retention of a midcore game, while monetizing like both.

For a hybrid-casual game, the midcore-like progressions are built around a casual core gameplay and create a balanced game economy that incentivizes players to return. As well as this,