If you’ve spent hours grinding ranked matches, unlocking new Brawlers, or arguing with friends over which game mode is the best, you’ve probably wondered at least once where was Brawl Stars made. You’re not alone if you’ve searched for where was Brawl Stars made before, it’s one of the most common questions new players ask about the game. It’s easy to forget that the fast-paced, chaotic mobile shooter we all know and love didn’t just pop up overnight. It went through years of tweaks, playtests, and scrapped ideas before it landed on app stores worldwide. As a long-time Brawl Stars player who’s been around since the beta days, I’ve dug into all the behind-the-scenes details to answer that question and share everything you never knew about the game’s origin.
Where Was Brawl Stars Made? Meet the Studio Behind the Game
The short answer is that Brawl Stars was developed entirely by Supercell, the independent game studio based in Helsinki, Finland. You probably recognize Supercell as the team behind other hit mobile games like Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Hay Day, and Boom Beach. The Brawl Stars project was led by a small internal team of 15 developers at Supercell’s headquarters, with no external studios involved in core development. There’s a common misconception that parts of the development for Brawl Stars were outsourced to other countries, but every core part of where was Brawl Stars made happened in the Helsinki office.
Supercell is known for its flat company structure, where small teams get full creative control over their projects, and the Brawl Stars team was no exception. They didn’t have to run design decisions by a big corporate team, which let them take risks and experiment with weird, fun ideas that bigger studios would probably reject. All core development, character design, and balance updates for Brawl Stars are still led by the Helsinki team today, even as the game’s global player base crosses 500 million downloads.
The 3-Year Development Journey That Almost Scrapped Brawl Stars
Development on Brawl Stars first started back in 2015, right after Supercell launched Clash Royale to global success. The team wanted to make a game that felt completely different from the Clash universe, focused on fast, competitive multiplayer matches that worked perfectly on mobile. The first prototype was nothing like the game you play today: it was a top-down 1v1 shooter with generic military characters, no unique abilities, and matches that lasted up to 10 minutes. Internal playtests went badly, most of the company thought the game was boring and too slow for mobile play.
Most players don’t realize that the entire beta testing process for where was Brawl Stars made was run directly by the Finnish team, who read every single feedback form submitted by beta players. They spent two years reworking the game from the ground up: they switched to 3v3 matches, cut match length to under 3 minutes, added unique Brawlers with signature abilities, and completely redid the art style twice. They soft-launched the beta in Canada, Finland, Sweden, and Norway in 2017, and spent another 18 months making changes based on player feedback. Supercell is famous for killing games that don’t perform well in beta, and Brawl Stars was almost canceled three separate times before its global launch in 2018.
Key Features That Were Added During Finnish Development
The team in Helsinki experimented with hundreds of ideas before settling on the features that make Brawl Stars unique today. They tested everything from 10-player battle royale modes to a monthly subscription model before landing on the systems players love now. Every feature on that list was brainstormed, tested, and refined in the same office where was Brawl Stars made, with no input from external teams. Some of the most popular parts of the game that came directly from the core development team include:
- The 3v3 game mode structure, which was chosen over 5v5 to keep matches under 3 minutes, perfect for quick mobile play sessions on the go
- The Brawler rarity system, which was designed to give free-to-play players consistent rewards without forcing them to spend money on loot boxes
- The seasonal content roadmap, which adds new Brawlers, maps, and game modes every two months to keep the game fresh for long-time players
- The friendly fire toggle for custom matches, which was added after thousands of beta players requested it for casual game nights with friend groups
I still remember the first time they added the Brawl Pass during the first official season, and it felt like a game-changer for free-to-play players. Before that, you could only get new Brawlers from loot boxes, which made the grind feel way more frustrating and random. The team added the Brawl Pass specifically to fix that complaint, after thousands of beta players mentioned they were quitting because they couldn’t unlock their favorite Brawlers. 90% of the in-game features you use regularly were tested and approved by the Helsinki development team before being rolled out globally.
Common Myths About Brawl Stars’ Origin Debunked
There are a lot of false claims floating around about where was Brawl Stars made, so let’s clear up the most common ones first. If you’ve ever seen a post claiming a different studio is responsible for where was Brawl Stars made, you can ignore it completely. One of the most persistent myths is that it was developed in China after Tencent bought a majority stake in Supercell in 2016. That’s completely false. Tencent bought a 84% stake in Supercell for $8.6 billion, but the contract gives Supercell full creative control over all its games, with zero input from Tencent on design, balance, or content. Tencent has no say in Brawl Stars’ character design, balance updates, or content releases, despite owning a majority share of Supercell.
Another common myth is that Brawl Stars was made by the same team that made Clash Royale. That’s not true either, the Brawl Stars team was a completely separate group of developers, most of whom had never worked on a Clash game before. They did consider adding Clash characters to the game early on to make it more familiar to players, but decided to make a new IP instead to give themselves more creative freedom. The last common myth is that Brawl Stars was originally supposed to be a PC game, but the team switched to mobile halfway through development. That’s also false, the game was built exclusively for mobile from the very first prototype.
You might also see fake apps on the app store that claim to be “official Brawl Stars spin-offs” made by the original development team. Those are all scams. If you see a "Brawl Stars clone" on the app store that claims to be made by the original developers, it’s a scam, no other studio has ever worked on official Brawl Stars content.
At the end of the day, the answer to where was Brawl Stars made is simple: it’s a 100% Finnish game, built by a small, passionate team at Supercell’s Helsinki headquarters. All the chaos, fun, and frustratingly balanced matches you play every day come from that small group of developers who spent three years refining the game until it was perfect. Next time you land a perfect Gale ult or win a knockout match in the final second, you can thank the Finnish team that put so much work into making the game what it is today. If you’re new to Brawl Stars, take some time to check out the old beta footage online, it’s wild to see how much the game has changed since its early days.