Solo Leveling has a penchant for rising to the pinnacle of every medium it enters, much like the journey of its protagonist, Sung Jinwoo. However, according to a recent industry ranking reveal for 2025, the franchise couldn’t get its hands on the throne this time.
An industry recap published by Gachagaming, which analyzed the market for gacha titles throughout 2025, revealed that Solo Leveling: Arise was among the most-downloaded titles of the year, yet still did not make it to the top spot. The Netmarble-developed title secured 12.4 million downloads over the 12-month period, good enough for only the third position.
This figure was roughly one-quarter of the total amassed by the year’s top performer, Pokémon TCG Pocket. According to the data, the game’s downloads peaked early in 2025 before experiencing a gradual decline throughout the summer. By the final quarter of the year, the numbers flattened out, maintaining a consistent average of approximately 600,000 downloads per month from October to December 2025.
Solo Leveling: Arise Comes Third in Game’s New Global Download Ranking
Image via CBR
The official rankings for the year’s most-downloaded gacha games are as follows:
- Pokémon TCG Pocket (47.2 million downloads)
- Genshin Impact (19.9 million downloads)
- Solo Leveling: Arise (12.4 million downloads)
- Dragon Ball Legends (10.9 million downloads)
- CookieRun: Kingdom (9.4 million downloads)
Despite grabbing a spot in the download charts, Solo Leveling: Arise struggled to replicate that success in the financial sector. The game failed to crack the top 10 highest-earning gacha titles of 2025, generating an estimated total revenue of US$38 million for the year, according to data sourced by Gacharevenue from SensorTower. Monthly earnings fluctuated significantly, starting at US$4 million in January 2025 and peaking at US$6 million in March, before settling into a long-term pattern of around US$2 million per month from June through the end of the year.
For comparison, the top-grossing game of 2025, Love and Deepspace, raked in over US$711 million in combined revenue. Meanwhile, the highest monthly revenue for Solo Leveling: Arise was US$6 million; in comparison, HoYoverse’s Honkai: Star Rail topped the single-month earning records with over US$103 million generated in April 2025. The top-grossing gacha games of 2025 overall are as follows:
- Love and Deepspace (US$711,000,000)
- Pokémon TCG Pocket (US$685,000,000)
- Honkai: Star Rail (US$588,275,000)
- Genshin Impact (US$523,340,000)
- Naruto Mobile (US$330,000,000)
- Fate/Grand Order (US$321,665,000)
- Wuthering Waves (US$262,650,000)
- Arknights (US$248,110,000)
- Monster Strike (US$247,000,000)
- Uma Musume: Pretty Derby (US$242,985,000)
Notably, several titles managed to outearn Solo Leveling despite having significantly lower download counts. For instance, Fate/Grand Order generated US$321.6 million from just 884,000 downloads, while Arknights secured US$248.1 million with 1.5 million downloads.
Solo Leveling: Arise Had a Record-Breaking Global Launch
Image by Morena Perez Vitale
While 2025 was a mixed bag, Solo Leveling: Arise had an impressive arrival on the scene upon its release in May 2024. During its initial global launch window, the title saw a massive 15 million people pre-register to step into the shoes of Sung Jinwoo. In the first 24 hours of release, the game hit five million daily active users and netted over US$10.3 million. Within three months, it surpassed the US$100 million revenue milestone. This performance was cited by Netmarble as the highest launch performance in the company’s history.
The momentum continued throughout its first few months, with the game reaching no. 1 in over 70 countries. By October 2024, Netmarble announced the game had surpassed 50 million global downloads. The critical reception matched its commercial speed, as the game won the Best Story in Google Play’s Best of 2024 awards and secured the Grand Prize at the 2024 Korea Game Awards.
While Arise represented a successful chapter, the franchise is currently expanding its digital footprint beyond the mobile gacha space. Netmarble recently launched Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive on Nov. 17, 2025, for PC, offering a non-gacha, full-game experience with console ports for Xbox and PlayStation 5 expected in 2026. Additionally, fans are anticipating the release of Solo Leveling: Karma, which will focus on the 27-year-long war between the Monarchs.
Systems
Released
May 8, 2024
ESRB
T For Teen Due To Violence, Blood
Developer(s)
Netmarble
Publisher(s)
Netmarble
