Intro music:

JACK GAO: Welcome to the fourth and last episode of the Game On podcast: The Rise of Brawl Stars. My name is Jack Gao, and I will be your host for this episode.

What is Brawl Stars? Brawl Stars is a multiplayer online battle arena and third-person hero shooter video game developed and published by Finnish video game company Supercell. The game was released worldwide on Dec. 12, 2018. Brawl Stars includes tens of playable brawlers each with a different playstyle. There are many different game modes, including showdown, a ten-player free-for-all, heist, a 3v3 mode where you must destroy your enemies’ heist first, and several others. As with most games, ever since its release, there has been turbulence with Supercell’s decisions for the game. Most concerning balance changes.

SHREY NEMANI: Do you think after it [Brawl Stars] came out, like two years after it came out, there was a big dip in popularity?

KENT LE: Yeah, I think balances changes and how the game was played. There wasn’t much new content either.

JACK GAO: As Kent has said, balance changes were one of the main reasons for Brawl Stars’ fall in popularity from 2019 to 2020. Balance changes, as the name suggests, balance the game and allow each brawler to have relatively similar strengths. However, the majority of people did not view these changes as helpful, but rather as a hindrance. Not a great start in the first year of a video game.

Even with the current rise in popularity, balance changes are always happening, especially with newly released brawlers, one of the most prominent being Kenji. Kenji is a legendary brawler with a dash-and-slash attack pattern. He deals moderate damage with each attack. For his Super, there is an animation of a fish flying over obstacles, and where the fish lands, he moves in an X shape, which deals high splash damage to enemies. However, Kenji was viewed as overpowered and broken not just because of his unique attacks, but also because of his gadget and star power.

To give some context, gadgets are special abilities that every brawler can equip to use during a match. Star Powers are passive abilities that can be used to change the outcome of a battle. The most prominent combination of Kenji’s gadget and star power was Hosomaki Healing and Nigiri Nemesis.

Currently, the gadget description states “Kenji instantly heals 50% of the damage taken over the last 3 seconds.” And the star power description states, “After avoiding damage for 5 seconds, gets 60% damage reduction from the next enemy attack.”
However, before several balance changes, his gadget, Hosomaki Healing, would heal 75% of damage while his star power, Nigiri Nemesis, would give him a 90% damage reduction. This essentially made him unkillable.

Moving off from balance changes, Brawl Stars is not only popular because of the new brawlers being added, but because of different game modes. Out of those game modes, ranked is the most competitive and arguably the most strategic out of the nine events. Strategy is most prominent once you reach diamond rank, the 4th tier of rank.

Here, you are able to “ban” brawlers and prevent your opponents from choosing them within the round. Adding onto that, there is also draft picking. And because certain brawlers have counters and are better in certain game modes, there is guaranteed to be clash within most matchups.

I am not a diamond rank, but a few of my friends are and I have played with them before to see the strategy myself. Each game mode has brawlers that are good and bad, most of the time, each person on a team bans a brawler that is extremely good or would counter their main pick. Another part of the strategy is draft picking. Certain brawlers are good for an early pick as they are generally strong and can force an opponent to pick a certain counter. Likewise, certain brawlers are also good late picks which can ensure stability across the team. This ensures that there will always be clash within most matchups, in any game mode, and it keeps the game interesting with a variety of matchups possible.

Not only that, Brawl Stars has also collaborated with different groups such as Paris Saint-German, Godzilla, and SpongeBob.
Each collaboration is seasonal, meaning it only lasts for one seasonal cycle, generally one month. During this time, there are limited perks, skins, and items you can gain. For example, during the SpongeBob event, certain skins were introduced to some brawlers for a limited time only, while certain upgrades during game modes were present only for the duration of the season.

JACK GAO: Do you think these collaborations, like events nowadays, have made it a lot more popular than it was?

KENT LE: Yeah, definitely. I think the collaborations that they’ve been doing can bring other players, and other audiences to the game.

As Kent has said, one of the main reasons for Brawl Stars’ popularity are the different audiences brought in. We can also see that as collaborations become more common for Brawl Stars, more people download the game. Every collaboration is unique, which keeps the game interesting with new additions to the game every single season. The most recent collaboration is with Toy Story. This brought in the limited-time seasonal brawler, Buzz Lightyear. You can get him maxed out and free in the shop today. Overall, we are able to see that Brawl Stars is a unique game with several different game modes and is constantly changing. Due to interesting game modes and collaboration with all different audiences, Brawl Stars is on the rise again and will likely stay that way.

Congrats — You’ve reached the end of the Game On podcast series. Thank you for joining us in an adventure starring the violence of games, the profitability of sports games, Fall Guys, and Brawl Stars.

If you wish to see more podcasts, subscribe to The Rubicon on PodBean or visit RubicOnline.

Thanks. It’s Game On.