Can Arclight Rumble Compete with Clash of Clans?

Blizzard has announced its entry into the mobile strategy genre with the reveal of Warcraft: Arclight Rumble. However, within mere hours of content being made available around Arclight Rumble, there were many people stating that it will be nothing more than a ‘Clash of Clans knock-off’. While we’ve heard whispers of a Warcraft-based mobile game for several months, it’s only now that we’re seeing a trailer surface, courtesy of the developer, Blizzard.

If you’re a fan of Clash of Clans, a mobile strategy title released way back in 2012, you’ll immediately notice the similarities. In some ways, it’s easy to see why people are stating that Arclight Rumble is simply Clash of Clans with a few Warcraft sprites thrown into the mix. Whether you’re comparing Arclight Rumble to Clash of Clans or Clash Royale, the similarities are certainly overwhelming, but what’s the deal with Blizzard’s new mobile strategy game?

That’s a lovely wallpaper though

Let’s Get Ready to Arclight Rumble

According to press releases, Arclight Rumble is being penned as a ‘tower offense’ game. It’ll offer players the ability to collect and unlock popular characters from the Warcraft series, using them to do battle across various levels. It’s essentially a watered-down version of the classic RTS platform that players have come to know and love for almost thirty years. Within Arclight Rumble, players will accumulate gold as they play, using that money to purchase units that they send out across the battlefield to fight any enemies.

It’s a simple premise that boasts a rudimentary single-player campaign, various unit types, and dungeons and raids. However, will the ‘beautifully simple’ model be enough to overcome the competition that stands in the form of Clash of Clans?

Released in 2012 after a short development window, Clash of Clans became the highest-grossing game in the United States just three months after launch. It took almost no time at all for the game to surpass 500 million downloads on iOS and at its peak, it generated more than $1.8 billion in revenue for the developer, Supercell. With that in mind, it is important to stress that Clash of Clans has experienced a dip in popularity and overall revenue in recent years.

Could Arclight Rumble take advantage of that lull?

The Potential of Arclight

Let’s be honest – if you were to put Clash Royale side-by-side with Arclight Rumble, you’d almost notice no difference at all. This is an immediate blocker to the success of Arclight Rumble. However, there is a little downstream potential when we look at esports opportunities within the Arclight Rumble ecosystem. It can be said that Blizzard is no stranger to the esports industry, and Warcraft as a franchise already boasts a relatively strong foothold in the business.

Clash Royale has enjoyed a relatively positive esports scene for a few years. It was back in 2019 that Supercell partnered with OGN to form the Clash Royale League, which at the tail end of 2021 produced a tournament with a massive $1.02m prize pool. That’s a more valuable tournament than anything seen before in Warcraft’s history.

With that being said, Arclight Rumble will include PvE, PvP, and co-op elements – meaning a foundation for an esports scene will already exist. Currently, Arclight Rumble is in development and no launch date has been set. It’ll be interesting to see exactly how Blizzard plans to separate and differentiate Arclight from Clash.

We’ll have to wait and see.