Game Insight reveals tower defense-based spinoff for its strategy hit, Cloud Raiders

SAN FRANCISCO — Dead men tell no tales, but they do build plenty of towers.

Developer Game Insight revealed a spin-off of its pirate-based mobile game, Cloud Raiders, during GamesBeat 2015 today. The new title, Cloud Raiders: Survival Arena, is a tower defense game that focuses on competitive gameplay. The original worked around persistent buildings and shorter game sessions, which is a popular route for mobile hits like Clash of Clans and Game of War. Survival Arena’s focus on longer play sessions and competitive action shows that mobile gaming can still accommodate players looking for deeper, more intense experiences.

The original Cloud Raiders has more than 5 million players, according to Game Insight. The mobile market is worth an estimated $30 billion this year, according to the researchers at Newzoo.

“We’ve seen so many different incarnations of this game genre over the years,” said Anatoly Ropotov, the chief executive officer of Game Insight, in a press release sent to GamesBeat, “But for some reason, developers seem to insist on giving tower defense games a single-player focus. By expanding the Cloud Raiders franchise into real-time, long-session gameplay, we’ve been able to apply the kind of clan-based, group-focused fun that our players love to another of our favorite genres.”

Survival Arena will be available as a separate download for PC, iOS, Android, Windows mobile, and Facebook. Cloud Raiders players can also download the new game into the existing app. Other mobile titles have created spinoffs, notably Angry Birds, which has its own kart racer and movie-based experiences based on the original game. However, it’s unusual for the players to have the option to download the spinoff into the original.