Supercell’s mo.co: A Constructive Deep Dive

Supercell has once again entered the mobile gaming landscape with their newest title, mo.co, a game that blends elements of Action RPGs, MMOs, and a bit of Extraction Shooters (specifically, given how its core loop is currently constructed, it resembles some elements from Extraction genres — if you have played e.g., Helldivers 2 recently, you can spot the similarities definitely in terms of jumping in and out for missions).

Note! This is a constructive analysis and review with all good and “bad” laid out to discuss and analyze this game and its current state properly. This post’s intention is not to judge and point any fingers — the intention is solely to educate and discuss about the game and its current state in a professional manner, and give pointers for my readers on where this type’s of game’s strengths and challenges lie given how it is constructed the way mo.co is now. Thank you for understanding, and hope you’ll enjoy of reading this article!

Deep Dive into mo.co

Unlike typical mobile game launches, mo.co debuted with an exclusive invite-only system, leveraging Supercell’s strong brand power to create massive FOMO (/curiosity) among players and industry professionals alike.

But beyond its clever launch strategy, does mo.co have the depth to stand alongside Supercell’s greatest hits like Clash Royale or Brawl Stars? Does it have depth to move the MMO / social Action RPG market further? This is where we’re taking a deep look into next up!

This analysis explores every facet of the game, from its marketing strategy to gameplay, progression systems, monetization, and future opportunities — in all of its good and bad, constructively.

Let’s go Hunters!

Marketing & Distribution: A Masterclass in Brand-Driven Growth

mo.co’s invite-only launch strategy was nothing short of genius. Supercell weaponized its brand reputation to drive organic adoption by implementing a system where only invited players could gain access.

This resulted in:

• Top-chart rankings without any paid UA: The game’s visibility skyrocketed purely through word-of-mouth and the inherent virality of limited access.

• Industry-wide hype: Supercell staff, including their CEO, changed their LinkedIn statuses to indicate they worked for mo.co, further increasing curiosity.

• Rapid invite spread: Within hours to days, invites were circulating across industry networks and even arriving via email to those who had signed up on the mo.co website pretty soon, with great timing.

If someone wants to be credited for this image, please do let me know via some channels as I couldn’t find the original poster myself.

Caution! While this distribution method is unique, its effectiveness is largely tied to Supercell’s brand strength. Most companies would struggle to replicate this strategy without an established reputation or an exceptionally innovative / immersive product that truly demands and sucks attention towards it.

mo.co: An Accessible Action-RPG with MMO Elements

Core Gameplay

mo.co’s gameplay is an accessible blend of ARPG and MMO mechanics, with a hint of Extraction-style objectives. Players take on the role of Monster Hunters and navigate through different maps (dungeons) to complete quests, fight monsters, and earn XP and rewards — with coming back for more after e.g., upgrading their character’s gear in the meta.

The Core Gameplay Consists of:

• Selection of different maps with unique quests and challenges to take part in.

• Fighting monsters, including mini-bosses / bosses as they come, by using a virtual joystick for movement and attack and talent/skill buttons for attacks and abilities.

• Co-op elements: Players play most often with others — completing quests alongside others, adding a social layer to the experience.

• Special game modes like “Rift”, which allow for:

  • Raids: Players team up to take down a powerful boss after other faced monsters.

  • Waves: Wave-based survival challenges.

Gameplay Strengths

• Polished visuals (incl. VFX) and fluid animations make the game feel high-quality. I can literally feel the dopamine and tension the gameplay gives and it’s great to watch at many points.

• Social gameplay mechanics add a multiplayer MMO-like feel.

• Low barrier to entry makes it highly accessible.

Gameplay Issues and Weaknesses

• The virtual joystick is frustratingly unresponsive: One of the game’s biggest UX issues, making movement imprecise and even painful (this tied to the heating of your pretty fresh mobile device causes an interesting pain-combo to your fingers, literally) to use over time.

• Lack of meaningful synergies: While Attack and Healer roles synergize in the gameplay, there is little depth beyond that — like where do we have casters, tanks, and other types of character builds? I would have expected at least 3 major specializations at this point you can delve into (maybe there is intention for this, but it’s not tangible in gameplay).

• Limited world exploration: Outside of maps, there is nothing to explore.

• Missing depth: Overall, lacks of synergies and having the gameplay being easily “mastered” over simplified, yet accessible, fighting, and how simplified maps are, etc., the gameplay doesn’t develop that much further as usually e.g., in ARPGs / MMOs they do given how their systems (e.g., character, talent/skill, itemization, gear) bring depth to the gameplay from meta as well; where in mo.co this isn’t tangible and realizing at this moment.

• Messy gameplay: The gameplay gets really messy at times with multiple enemies and other players on the screen, which makes it very hard to read — yet alone causing performance and heating issues you wouldn’t expect getting during at this wide distribution stage anymore.

Progression Systems: Functional but Light

Whilst mo.co takes high quality take on introducing several systems, it raises up mainly a question at this stage of its existence: Can MMO / ARPG be made too streamlined? I believe the answer is: Yes, it unfortunately can.

The game aims for mass appeal and mass volume, which means its target audience is wide — whilst on top of that the game is definitely targeting younger players and generations through its look and feel (which also brings some legal limitations to what can be done and what isn’t going to be possible, which isn’t going to make the case any straight-forward in terms of what I’m discussing more below). This pretty much means Supercell will be looking to find a right balance between players’ understanding for depth (which is usually pretty deep in MMOs / Action RPGs), while same time, according to their portfolio strategy, they aim same time cater the game for larger audience in an accessible format. This is not going to be an easy battle — and overall after seeing mo.co’s systems, I think Supercell might even underestimate their audience with this game, as they’re in my opinion overlooking their capabilities to learn more depth, which has taken mo.co to develop a bit far away from its actual potential. Same time, I’m guessing they’re juggling with core audience coming to play more than they expected, with challenges on getting high quantities of their target players coming in.

To break some above points down, let’s start with: Accessibility. Accessibility is all about a barrier of entry overall, and in my opinion, you can safely add depth if you do guide players the right way (and this is where Supercell could double-down more in my opinion) after low barrier of entry — specifically, based on how I perceive mo.co’s hits and misses. On top of that, as a second point and what I started describing more already above on this article, is that I have a hunch that currently, on top of what I’m describing the balancing challenge being between mass appeal and depth perception (/fine-tuning between barrier of entry and depth), mo.co is getting players they didn’t much target for in the first place — meaning, more midcore and hardcore players are signing up to play, whilst they have primarily gone for a younger audience as the main target audience. I assume also that they’re getting this core audience probably much easier currently than their actual target audience, which overall also raises up the question in connection with accessibility: Who should be this game made for?

Understanding more tangible and practical way how much younger generations and masses could learn about depth after low a barrier of entry, on top of balancing this game for older audience’s taste (as much as possible on the other side of the scale) that is slipping to play this game, will be over time a make or break it question (or a battle over tough choices for the game’s future) for mo.co — and I hope the team behind the game will find a right way to add depth more to the game the right way, with more bolder takes on audience-catering and trusting they can handle things; that actually could crack current challenges and phenomena, and formulas of success for them.

Besides my long intro to mo.co’s systems through a bit more straightened and constructive take from audience point of view, and the note (which I’m making here) that the game’s entry to market due to these gaps feels a bit rushed, let’s take a look into what’s going on in the game — that’s what all of you came here for as well, right?

Character Progression

• XP-based leveling system determines e.g., character health and what weapons you get.

• Character Levels gate access to content (e.g., Elite Hunter program, higher-level maps/chapters).

• Impacts health scaling and determines gear access (max. level for the gear you can wear).

Gear and Item System

• Weapons / Items and Buffs come in different specializations (Attack, Healing, Pet, etc.), and you get them e.g., through character level unlocks.

• Items level up automatically.

• Cosmetics, which you can put on for customizing and personalizing your character’s visual look.

Pets

• Pets with which you can e.g., move faster in maps when you ride with them.

• Pets that spawn / are summoned from the weapons you use, to assist you in the battlefield.

Other Progression Features

• Daily Quests and “Projects” (missions/quests) drive engagement — through currently heavily focused on cycling content from maps to Gear / Items in terms of getting all cleared on top of the grinding experience. Overall it looks the system is supporting the grind and making it more meaningful, in its current format.

• Leaderboards (global and local) offer light competitive incentives.

• Light Social features like team creation, friend lists, and matchmaking.

What’s Missing and Where are the Current Gaps?

• No actual Hunt Mechanisms: If this is a monster hunt game, where are hunt / collection, and such mechanics? Shouldn’t this be kind of part of the game’s core after the setting it offers? Gotta catch ‘em all, right?

• No Skill/Talent Trees: No customization of character abilities and stats beyond very basic gear choices.

• No Gear Rarity and Drops: No loot! A missed opportunity for a more compelling looter experience (one’s ARPG-styled game is as strong as its item system). The game has currently really straight-forward and light way for giving access to weapons, and it’s not tickling any looter-like nerves for you as a player. I just spent time on making MMO with looting and rarity item mechanics, and players spent literally hundreds of hours to get the best ones through dungeon raiding. It is what players urge for — and streamlining this is a risky path to go.

• No Armor System: No armor mechanics or defensive progression other than current character progression system.

• No manual Gear upgrading: I like the streamlined spirit of gear upgrading, but I think it’s a mistep to automate it as it takes some form of investment / player equity building feeling away from the UX, on top of which it would have given some theorycrafting opportunities with proper systems to take a break from the game’s dopamine-driven gameplay nature (I get the short session format as every format of mostly engaging entertainment is now in a short format, but overall proper pacing and theorycrafting time wouldn’t hurt the game — as it would definitely make players feel more invested when you execute it the right way, and having them rest a second is a good thing).

• No rarity tiers or elemental affinities, making itemization feel shallow.

• Quest and Mission System feels “working” tasks: Indeed, quest and mission system feels just working tasks after tasks with no visible journey to take part in. If the game would have more depth in its maps and further exploration depth, Quests and Missions would actually feel more like journeys to take part in. Now they do their job in supporting the grind, as said above, whilst could be having lots of more meaningful depth as the game’s world would allow it.

• Lack of actual Social depth: The game has lots of missing social systems depth even co-op-like gameplay is part of the core gameplay experience. Everyone can spot it immediately at this stage, as even things like Leaderboards feel just like bandages in the game — and, before we go judging too much, there’s a reason for this: The game is still clearly at its early stages, so we’ll have to see where mo.co team takes the game over time

• Limited exploration and depth through it: Repeating this from above: Outside of maps, there is nothing to explore. This causes not just missing the feeling of world discovery one step at a time, but also potential gaps on future progression systems over any type of town / hub systems to NPCs, base building, crafting (yet alone the fact that current gear and item systems wouldn’t even stretch for crafting), and such in an actual environment that you can explore and progress through.

• Lack of emergent and systemic systems: These types of systems are completely missing from the game, if you really take a deep look into what you could do with similar systems in the game as well as in its gameplay. It could be interesting to have some of these with tie-ins to e.g., character synergies over time or to different gameplay modes mo.co could introduce.

The lack of systems the way they should be in culminates to couple things we should be mindful about: 1) To the things I’ve listed above under this Section’s (Progression Systems: Functional but Light) intro part; and 2) To the fact that the game is still at early stage. Time will tell how mo.co’s team is going to tackle these challenges over.

Monetization and Economy: Too Light for Long-Term Revenue?

Seeing where the game is, I think mo.co will have hard time in its early stages to find ways to monetize the same way as Supercell’s other games do, as now definitely you feel immediately how light the monetization layer of the whole game and economy is — as I don’t have any type of urge to monetize at the moment in the game, and would not probably develop such an urge given it has lots of depth and MMO systems missing; which would create such opportunities. I like the idea of avoiding P2W, but when you’re going through that route, you should really understand how to monetize your journey properly to have a business case — where e.g., intrinsic monetization can come handy, if you know how to juggle with a thing like that.

Overall these games should be looked as investable hobbies, on top of which you should have intrinsically motivating approach to monetize your users, as you want to make business out from your games — where mo.co has still ways to go. Whilst my assessment on this is pretty direct, Supercell has a track record on getting things right, and I’m hoping mo.co team will find its way for what I call as a sustainable and healthy monetization for their business — as well as for the users enjoying this game in its potential future.

Monetization and Economy Methods

mo.co’s economy and monetization methods includes:

• Merch Tokens: Earned from mo.co crates and missions, used in a gacha-like system for cosmetics pulls.

• mo.gold (Premium Currency): Used for e.g., premium cosmetics and emoji packs. Currently it seems you can get it mainly from the in-game shop.

• Event Pass: A simple Event Pass with free and premium unlocks / milestones for rewards.

• Mission Timers for some game modes: Time-based mechanics subtly encourage / limit progression pacing.

  • Side Note: I might guess it wrong, but as the Cool Zone includes stating character’s damage per second, I am trying to guess dps is used for economic and progression control on some modes in connection with the map timer and enemy scaling (but I could be wrong — and, anyhow, despite my guess, there’s a timer still).

Monetization Challenges

• Lack of urgency to spend: There’s little incentive to buy premium currency or cosmetics due to the game’s light RPG elements.

• No strong extrinsic or intrinsic motivators: Unlike Supercell’s systems on Clash of Clans or Brawl Stars, monetization feels like an afterthought rather than a core system — with misses on not just purely on monetization side but also on engagement-monetization tie-ins.

• No deep meta-systems to sustain spending: Unlike Clash Royale or Brawl Stars, where progression compels monetization in a balanced manner for those types of games, on top of which some players perceive them also intrinsically in a proper way, mo.co lacks a strong foundation for long-term revenue at this stage.

What’s Missing and What Can Be Improved?

Key Missing Features / Areas to Develop

1. Hunt Mechanisms: As the game’s universe is all about monster hunting, depth should be added to this through collections and similar systems that actually are better part of the UX.

2. Social Systems: The game takes a social-first approach in its core, yet it feels still quite light on social side, which probably is a result of not just having time yet to have them in the game. It will be crucial for mo.co to take deeper takes on these as soon as possible, to sustain its business case.

3. Exploration and World-Building: A town/hub system could add immersion and social depth — later including building and crafting systems tied to those. Exploration would also allow Quest and Mission systems being developed and evolved to actual MMO-like Quest and Mission systems with depth.

4. Gear/Item Depth: Introducing gear rarities, loot drops, and an armor system would enhance progression.

5. Skill/Talent Trees: Allowing players to customize abilities and develop stats further would add strategic depth — players love power progression and player equity building this way among other things.

6. Synergy Mechanics: Tank, Support, Mage, etc. archetypes would strengthen co-op gameplay — in combination of evolving character systems more support class-based character specialization builds as well as having more actual synergies in the gameplay. If gameplay requires being less messy, it should be fine from its current state to make it more readable, and clean as an experience — to build space for more deeper gameplay.

7. Economy and Monetization Expansion: More monetization avenues need to be explored, such as:

   • Group-based monetization in event passes.

   • Multiple simultaneous events with monetization layers — from single pass to multiple passes, etc.

   • Increased gacha variety to make spending more compelling.

   • Stashing systems with event, pass, gacha, etc. tie-ins.

   • Intrinsic monetization strategies with bolder takes — e.g., investments into some form of skill/talent systems shouldn’t be no-gos same way as e.g., giving access to weapons and armor in the game that are perceived as P2W.

Long-Term Challenges

• Can ARPG / MMO-style game be too streamlined? Who this game should be tailored for? Those are the main questions mo.co raises up, as it feels designed for mass-market appeal, but its over-simplification may limit long-term engagement, on top of which it definitely has core audience slipping in playing, who clearly demands a lot more.

• Is Supercell underestimating its current target audience? The lack of depth suggests a hesitancy to trust players with complex systems, yet I believe younger generations are perfectly capable of understanding more intricate mechanics if guided properly.

• Business case sustainability — who to engage, how to engage, and how to monetize that engagement?

Other Areas to Develop

1. Emergent and Systemic Expansion: The game could benefit from emergent and systemic mechanics more.

2. Exploring Genre-blending Synergies: Given the Extraction-like feeling I got from the gameplay, I think mo.co could capitalize more if it would take further looks into ARPG, MMORPG, Looter Shooter, and Extraction Shooter genres, and see what could from those work well for their game as well. This could lead to very interesting discoveries—and if not directly for mo.co, maybe for future Supercell games then.

UX and Performance Challenges

• Performance issues and device heating.

• Server / networking stability issues.

• Messy gameplay.

• UX issues with e.g., virtual joystick.

Note: Interested to read more about some of the suggestions for mo.co I mention on my list above? Maybe Supercell wants more notes on their table from me? Check out these articles:

Sustainable Games:

Social and Intrinsic Systems:

Monetization Systems:

Other Related:

Final Thoughts: Is mo.co the Next Supercell Hit?

mo.co presents an innovative take on mobile Action RPGs, blending MMO and Extraction-like mechanics with an accessible approach. However, it also feels underdeveloped in key areas at its current state, particularly in progression depth and monetization—which make it feel a bit rushed to this extensive launch stage at its current state.

mo.co has lots of good in it — on top of which it has the potential to be a massive success if Supercell addresses its missing features and refines / advances its systems. Time will tell how they’re going to tackle these challenges they have ahead — and for that I’m wishing for them all luck as we’re still missing games like this in the mobile gaming space (on top of we have even MMOs such as classics-inspired ones missing, and much more).