Recap of the Week
- Honkai: Star Rail created a massive market boost, growing its revenue by over 400% and jumping 54 ranks on the leaderboard.
- New games launched in April, such as Haunted Room: Ngôi Nhà Hắc Ám and Legends Reborn-Funtap, showed impressive debut performance, jumping straight into the Top 30 weekly revenue chart.
- A number of long-running titles, including WARPATH and ZingSpeed Mobile, also climbed sharply thanks to event campaigns and major updates, recording active player spending ahead of the holiday period.
- The past week saw a vibrant wave of community activities, notably the Audition Championship tournament, the debut of Total Football VNG in the national league system, and the showcase event for the blockbuster Lineage W.
Market & Game Performance
Dynamic Ranking: Outstanding Revenue Breakouts and Strong Momentum from New Entrants
This week’s AppMagic data shows that Vietnam’s mobile gaming market continued to experience notable movement in both ranking and revenue.
Rank Spike: Significant Ranking Climbers
This week, several titles recorded an increase of 10 ranks or more compared to the previous week. Key highlights include:
- Honkai: Star Rail: Increased sharply by 54 ranks, rising to 6th position.
- WARPATH: HUÂN CHƯƠNG CHIẾN HỎA: Increased by 19 ranks, standing at 47th position.
- ZingSpeed Mobile: Increased by 15 ranks.
- Other titles also recorded strong rank breakthroughs (10 ranks or more) including: Đấu Trường Chân Lý: LMHT Teamf, Ballistic Hero VNG, Cơ Giới Chiến: War Robots, and Arknights: Endfield VN.
The simultaneous growth of long-standing titles shows that event/update campaigns anticipating the holiday period (April 30 – May 1) are being rolled out and are recording positive spending from players.
Revenue Spike: Explosive Growth
- Honkai: Star Rail: recorded a dramatic revenue increase of 432.36%, reaching $45K.
This sharp spike is a textbook case of how the gacha model can generate outsized results when a major update is combined with a powerful communications campaign. The 3rd Anniversary event, delivered through Version 4.2, “So Laughed the Masses” (Thế Là, Chúng Sinh Vui Cười Mãi Không Thôi), launched on 22/04 and triggered a massive revenue wave through the convergence of multiple factors.
Source: Hoyoverse
The rollout included an unprecedented set of benefits, including 20 pulls, 1,600 Stellar Jades, and, for the first time, a free limited 5-star character of the player’s choice (Huohuo or Robin). This created a strong incentive for returning players.
Source: Hoyoverse
At the same time, the introduction of Silver Wolf Lv.999 in Phase 1, along with highly popular rerun characters (The Dahlia, Castorice, Firefly), further optimized spending demand within the community. The communications boost from the animation project co-produced with MAPPA also created strong spillover on social media.
Together, these factors drove an exceptional revenue surge for Honkai: Star Rail during the week of 20/04 to 26/04. Data shows that once Phase 1 began on 21/04, daily revenue jumped to nearly five times the previous day’s level, continued to climb, peaked on 24/04, and remained at a high level through the weekend.
Source: Appmagic
New Entrant: Several New Titles Appeared in This Week’s Top 50 Revenue
This week saw the entry of new titles launched within the last 3 months into the Top 50:
- Haunted Room: Ngôi Nhà Hắc Ám (Real Time Strategy – Launched 03/04/2026): Jumped straight into 10th position with revenue of $39K.
- Legends Reborn-Funtap (Idle RPG – Launched 05/04/2026): Entered at 27th position with revenue of $14K.
Haunted Room: Ngôi Nhà Hắc Ám surged into the Top 10 in just three weeks, driven by the combination of a distinctive tower defense gameplay loop, where characters sleep to grind summoning resources, and eye-catching Gothic Chibi visuals paired with a fast, bite-sized play format (5 minutes per match). Beyond product quality, the decisive factor was Funtap’s disciplined launch-phase operations, especially aggressive User Acquisition (UA) supported by broad content seeding across gaming communities, including guides and gift codes.
For Legends Reborn, the Top 27 entry was primarily powered by brand strength and Funtap’s existing distribution ecosystem. Although it did not rely on explosive media events, the title still maintained strong momentum through a coordinated gift-code rollout across community channels on launch day, together with the advantages of the Idle RPG genre, which fits Vietnamese player preferences and time availability particularly well, especially ahead of the long April 30 holiday period.
Esports & Cộng đồng
Audition Vietnam Championship 2026 Concludes and a New Milestone for Total Football VNG
Total Football VNG Explodes on Launch and Officially Joins the SEA Esports Nations Cup
Source: Vnexpress
Developed by GALA Sports and published by VNGGames in Southeast Asia on April 22, Total Football VNG quickly attracted over 3 million pre-registrations. Notably, the title immediately made a strong mark by becoming one of the 5 medal-contending disciplines in the first national team-level tournament – the SEA Esports Nations Cup (SNC), diễn ra trong khuôn khổ Vietnam GameVerse 2026 (8-9/5 tại TP.HCM).
The game offers a breakthrough experience with 3D graphics, integrated VAR technology, controller support, and holds the licensing rights for over 60,000 players from FIFPro. In Vietnam, the game demonstrated an impressive localization strategy with the companionship of brand ambassador Nguyễn Đình Bắc and commentator Mai Anh Tài.
Introducing Total Football VNG into a regional-scale tournament system like the SNC immediately upon launch shows VNGGames’ clear ambition to dominate the eFootball market segment. The combination of product features meeting international standards (VAR, FIFPro, roadmap towards World Cup 2026) and deep localization strategy is a crucial leverage point for them to compete directly with other major players in the football simulation genre [1].
Audition Vietnam Championship 2026: A Step Towards eSports Standardization and Affirming the Position of “Timeless Game”
Source: Dantri news
The National Championship – Audition Vietnam Championship (AVC) 2026 concluded successfully with a well-organized process, attracting tens of thousands of online spectators. The golden board marks the achievement of player Lê Thị Hoài Phương (Elina) – a former SEA Games 33 gold medalist – as she successfully defended the Women’s Singles championship and also won the Mixed Doubles cup with Bùi Tấn Tài.
The Men’s Singles category crowned Nguyễn Ngọc Quý as champion. Notably, beyond being an eSports competitive environment, this 20-year-old title is also reaching the finals of the “Timeless Game” category at GameVerse 2026 thanks to overwhelming community support.
The stringent scale upgrade of AVC 2026 reflects VTC’s long-term strategy to standardize the eSports environment for Audition, aiming for regional standards. This is considered an important launchpad for training successor talents, maintaining a long history of international achievements (having won 2 Gold, 2 Silver, 2 Bronze medals at SEA Games 33), and simultaneously proving the enduring vitality of Vietnam’s longest-standing casual/music community [2].
Lineage W Unveils SEA Exclusive Version at Grand Showcase Event and Sets Launch Date for May 27
Source: Kenh14
On April 18, NCV Games hosted a grand showcase event for the MMORPG blockbuster Lineage W at GEM Center, Ho Chi Minh City. The highlight of the event was the sharing from CEO Bae Jung Yong on the development direction of the SEA version, specifically designed for regional gamers: integrating automatic translation to eliminate language barriers, a convenient offline farming system, and the PURPLE Client platform to ensure a smooth cross-platform experience.
The game still inherits the 4 core values that made the brand famous: battlefield, blood oath, sacrifice, and honor. The event gathered many notable guests such as journalist Vũ Bằng, AOE legend Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng, and officially set the opening date for the entire region to May 27. The title is currently available for pre-registration on iOS, Android, and PC platforms.
The large-scale launch event, coupled with the establishment of the NCV Games joint venture and a deep “localization” strategy (translation support, optimized cross-platform gameplay), demonstrates the immense ambition of NC and VNGGames to re-establish standards and dominate the Hardcore MMORPG segment in the Southeast Asian market [3].
References
- VnExpress. (2026, April 24). Total Football VNG được chọn thi đấu tại SEA Esports Nations Cup. vnexpress.net. https://vnexpress.net/total-football-vng-duoc-chon-thi-dau-tai-sea-esports-nations-cup-5066508.html
- Thịnh, T. (2026, April 21). AVC 2026: Bước tiến chuẩn hóa eSports và sự phát triển của Audition. Báo Điện Tử Dân Trí. https://dantri.com.vn/doi-song/avc-2026-buoc-tien-chuan-hoa-esports-va-su-phat-trien-cua-audition-20260421170427574.htm
- Hoàng K. (2026, April 20). Lineage W ấn định ngày ra mắt game thủ Việt Nam. https://kenh14.vn. https://kenh14.vn/lineage-w-an-dinh-ngay-ra-mat-game-thu-viet-nam-215260420160459012.chn
