Week 34

74.5K total creators (+1.3%) alongside 362.9K total islands (+1.4%) show a supply side growing at matched rates. The per-creator average holds at 4.9 islands (+0.7%), meaning both creators and islands are entering the ecosystem at a consistent and proportional pace. On the surface, those numbers look stable. The active island count breaks that picture. 4.9K new islands launched this week - a +10.3% jump and the strongest new-supply week since April 2026 - but active islands, those crossing the 5-play floor, fell 4.4% to 48.2K. More content is being published than the discovery system is absorbing. The majority of islands launched this week will not find a meaningful audience. Active creators declined to 22.8K (-2.9%) alongside a -2.6% drop in new creators to 958. Both contracting together points to a mild participation contraction at the margins: high-volume existing creators are sustaining the headline totals while newer or lower-frequency participants pull back. One week of this pattern is a mild signal; a second consecutive week would require closer attention.

Average uniques per island at 1.8K and average CCU per island at 98.7 describe a distribution where a small number of islands carry the bulk of traffic. The platform-wide average session of 12.2 minutes (the same figure that slipped 4.1% this week) means the window for an island to deliver a compelling first experience and earn a return visit is narrow and narrowing. Battle Royale by epic leads the global CCU table at 1.3M but is down 63.8% week on week - a sharp decline in the same period where total platform plays rose 15.3%. That divergence, Epic's flagship title falling while the platform surges, reflects where the growth is concentrated: in UGC. STEAL THE BRAINROT by ferins holds second at 339.6K (+2.2%), Reload by epic sits third at 323.4K (+3.5%), and GO UP FOR BRAINROTS by ferins takes fourth at 272.9K (-14.1% but still well clear of the field below it). In the UGC-only table, ferins occupies the top two positions, neverty7's Fight The Brainrot holds third at 205.8K (-1.7%), and Sprite Garden by epicgames sits fourth at 185.7K without a prior-period change figure - suggesting a new entrant into the measured window. PILLARS by hive at 38.9K (+9.2%) is the UGC table's most notable sixth-place entry - a Party & Mini Games island growing in a week dominated by simulation and brainrot formats, and a signal that audience diversity above the top-five threshold still exists.

Top by Uniques

BOX PVP leads the top-by-uniques chart at 7.1M, ahead of Sprite Garden at 5.8M, Piece Control 2v2 and GO GOATED! Zone Wars at 5.4M each, PILLARS at 5.2M, and STEAL THE BRAINROT at 4.5M. The six islands span multiple formats (shooter practice, simulation, zone wars, party games, and brainrot) confirming that volume this week was distributed across genre types rather than concentrating in one. The growth chart's headline is CAKESFN: Red vs Blue Showdown at +254.3K% to 35.6K uniques, though the percentage magnitude reflects a near-zero starting base. The more consequential breakout is Drain the lake by hav: +67.7K% to 659.9K uniques - the only entry in the top growth list combining an extreme percentage gain with a genuinely large absolute audience. KNEECAPPER KNOCKOUT by kirious sits in a middle tier at 154.9K uniques (+42.1K%), a real audience at meaningful scale rather than a headline percentage inflated by a tiny denominator. DESERT ZONE WARS - FFA at 5.0K uniques (+71.5K%) and NEW PIT GREEN VS PURPLE at 16.7K uniques (+50.6K%) carry impressive growth rates but still modest absolute audiences. For these islands the percentage signals early momentum; the absolute uniques figure is the more useful number for determining whether discovery scale has actually been reached.

D1 / D7 Retention Distribution

0-5% bucket WoW: +788 islands (D1), -2060 islands (D7) · 90-100% bucket WoW: -152 islands (D1), -23 islands (D7)

Platform-weighted D1 sits at 40.02% and D7 at 27.92%. Both figures weight toward larger islands and sit above what most individual islands achieve. The 12-percentage-point gap between D1 and D7 at the platform level means a player retained on day one carries roughly a 70% conditional probability of returning by day seven - a baseline that puts the top-island retention figures in context. 1V1 PRO clean by infnitepixel holds first place on both the D1 (78.2%, +0.2%) and D7 (75.8%, +1.4%) lists, and the 2.4-point spread between those two rates - against the platform's 12-point spread - means its returning audience is nearly fully habitual after the first return visit. Fight The Brainrot by neverty7 is the most improved island in both tables simultaneously, up +8.5 points D1 and +8.4 points D7 week on week. Star Wars Droid Tycoon by foad held D1 flat at 67% while growing D7 to 61.7% (+6.3%), a pattern where the audience that already returns is becoming more consistent without the island needing to acquire additional initial returners. Only Up Volcano by perec posted the largest replay rate improvement in the table at +48.8% to 8.4x, meaning the average player visits the island 8.4 times across the week. Paired with its second-place retention-adjusted engagement scores at D1 (152.2) and D7 (140.9), this island is building a high-frequency audience that absolute play counts alone would not reveal. FREE BUILDING PRACTICE 1V1 & ALL by bnstudios leads retention-adjusted engagement by a wide margin at 813.4 (D1) and 774 (D7), driven by session depths that sustain engagement across the full week.

hive leads on uniques at 16.8M across 13 islands with 561.3M total minutes - the widest raw audience reach in the table. bullseye generates the most plays at 29.4M from 22 islands but with 276.1M minutes and 24.5% D1, a breadth strategy producing more discrete play events at lower average depth per island. ferins is the efficiency case: 7.0M uniques and 29.3M plays from 6 islands at 43.9% D1 - the highest retention average in the table. Dividing ferins' 513.9M minutes by 7.0M uniques gives approximately 73 minutes of engagement per unique player this week, roughly twice the per-player depth of hive's audience at comparable play volume. epicgames holds a single island (Sprite Garden) at 5.8M uniques and 10.2M plays but at 5.0% D1 - the lowest retention rate in the table by a wide margin. The contrast with ferins' 43.9% D1 at nearly the same play count illustrates the difference between content that draws a first-time audience and content that builds a returning one. raider464 closes the table at 3.4M uniques but holds 33.1% D1 from 5 islands - the second-highest retention in the table and the strongest output-to-island-count ratio among non-brainrot creators. Three distinct strategies are performing at the top of the creator league this week: breadth at volume (bullseye, 22 islands), format concentration with high efficiency (ferins, 6 islands, 43.9% D1), and quality depth with a tight portfolio (raider464, 5 islands, 33.1% D1). All three reach comparable play volumes. The common factor is coherence within whichever strategy is chosen, not the specific island count.

1.0K avg minutes per player at hedge survival, 893 at hop mountain battle, and 843.6 at peak battle assault - all three from heny62 - place one creator in three of the top six positions in the avg min/player table. The consistency across three separate islands is a stronger signal than any individual result. hop mountain battle is the only one of the three growing this week (+29.2%), while hedge survival (-11.4%) and Island Escape by codeseany (-14.2%) are both pulling back, suggesting some shared audience overlap or a comparable format experiencing a softer week. On CCU growth, Drain the lake by hav tops the table at 15.0K% peak CCU growth (week-on-week improvement in that figure: +115.5K%), confirming it was essentially invisible last week. Pillars: Unvaulted by bigjohn092 follows at 17.2K% CCU growth (+46.4K% week on week). The six growth-table entries span Adventure, Party/Mini Games, Shooter, and Deathrun genres with no concentration in one format, pointing to the breakout mechanism being external discovery rather than any genre-specific algorithmic push this week. FREE BUILDING PRACTICE 1V1 & ALL by bnstudios sits fifth in avg min/player at 761.7 (-19.7%) - a meaningful decline from a leading position. Given that it tops the retention-adjusted engagement tables at D1 (813.4) and D7 (774), the min/player drop is the single metric to track in Week 35 to determine whether the core audience is shifting its engagement pattern or whether this is a one-week variance.

Category Share of Plays

Fastest-Growing Categories

Top Categories by D1

Category Intensity (Plays / Island)

Star Wars commands 49.1% of category-labelled plays this week - nearly half of all category plays running through a single IP label. LEGO (14.6%) and KPOP DEMON HUNTERS (13.9%) sit tightly grouped at second and third, a narrower gap than is typically seen at those positions. Squid Game (7.5%), The Walking Dead Universe (6.5%), and Fall Guys (3.3%) account for the remaining listed category share. The intensity table - plays per island - reshuffles the order meaningfully. Star Wars leads at 3.8K plays per island, but KPOP DEMON HUNTERS ranks second at 2.6K, ahead of LEGO's 2.3K. KPOP DEMON HUNTERS generates more plays per island than LEGO despite LEGO holding the larger total share - pointing to a smaller island pool in the KPOP DEMON HUNTERS category producing concentrated per-island output. For a creator building into that IP label, each island is, on average, capturing more plays than a comparable island in the LEGO space. Rocket Racing sits last in the intensity table at 484 plays per island - less than half the plays per island of The Walking Dead Universe (1.2K) and well below every other listed category. The gap is wide enough to indicate either low audience demand relative to island supply in that category or a discovery efficiency problem suppressing per-island reach.

Genre Leaderboards

Player-weighted across each genre's islands. Peak CCU is the sum of island peak concurrents; retention is the returning-player rate.

Genre Weekly Rollup

Islands by Genre

Top Chart Position This Week

Biggest Chart Movers

Movers computed among top-100 chart positions.

Movers computed from 7 days this week vs 6 days last week of available data.

Supply vs. Exposure

66.9K Shooter islands top Epic's own genre chart by island count - a ranking system that is entirely separate from both the Genre Leaderboards in SLIDE 10 and the Category Analytics data, with no numbers shared across those three sources. The positions in Epic's chart reflect Epic's own algorithm weighting rather than raw play volume. One methodological note: mover comparisons this week are computed from 7 days of current data against 6 days of prior-period data, which introduces a slight upward bias to position-change figures. Shooter's 66.9K islands grew +9.4% week on week - the fastest growth rate of the eight listed genres by island count. Simulation & Tycoon sits seventh by island count at 5.6K with the slowest growth rate (+1.6%) despite leading the performance leaderboard data by a wide margin. Supply and tracked performance run in opposite directions here: the genre with the greatest performance momentum has the smallest island-count growth, while the most supply-heavy genre is expanding fastest. goodgamers holds the top chart position in two separate genres simultaneously - Murder Mystery in Horror (avg #1.7, 7 days) and Bed Wars in Strategy (avg #1.0, 7 days) - an uncommon multi-genre chart position from one creator. ferins' GO UP FOR BRAINROTS leads the Simulation & Tycoon chart at avg #1.0 for all 7 days, and Drain the lake by hav reached the Adventure & RPG top position in just 4 days at avg #1.8, consistent with its week-defining breakout in the uniques and growth data. Among the biggest chart movers, Drain the lake improved the most with a +50.6 position gain (from avg #52.3 to avg #1.8), followed by PILLARS DUO (+45.2, from avg #47.5 to avg #2.3) and PARKOUR DEATHRUN TIKTOKER 400+ (+44.8). In the supply vs. exposure table, Shooter sits at 0.3% exposure (195 row slots for 66.9K islands) - the most congested genre in the ecosystem. Sports & Racing leads on exposure at 4.1% (164 row slots for 4.0K islands) and Adventure & RPG sits at 3.9% (171 row slots for 4.4K islands). Adventure & RPG produced the week's biggest chart mover in Drain the lake - confirming that low-congestion genres with healthy row-slot counts create the conditions for rapid algorithmic movement when content performs.

hippogamer holds the top three positions in the favorites-per-player table: HIPPO 1V1 - ALL GUNS FFA at 12.4 (+7.7K%), HIXO 1V1 at 7.7 (+4.7K%), and HIPPO ZONE WARS 1V1 at 7.3 (+37.1K%). The percentage gains reflect starting from near zero in the prior period. The favorites-per-player rates themselves - particularly 12.4 at the top - suggest an audience actively bookmarking these islands for deliberate repeat access, consistent with a returning practice community. Three islands from one creator occupying the top three positions points to creator-community loyalty as the driving variable, not format alone. TRIO ZERO BUILD ZONEWARS [ENDGAME] by harvzy is the only island in the favorites table showing a meaningful decline, down -47.8% to 1.9 favorites per player. That contraction in the same zone-wars adjacent space where hippogamer is growing indicates the differentiating factor is creator-community identity rather than the format itself - similar gameplay types, opposite favoriting trends. In the recommendations-per-player table, Infinite gun game arena by spirit.game leads at 2.2 (+479.3%) and Tilted Gacha Pon Zone Wars by kaitou sits second at 1.1 (+177.1%). Both are growing sharply from small prior-period bases. A high recommendations-per-player rate signals the algorithm is actively surfacing an island to new audiences relative to its existing player count - a position that can convert into wider play growth if the content retains those recommendation-driven arrivals.

1.28B total plays and a 14.9% jump in daily island players set new highs in Week 34, but the surge was driven by a concentrated brainrot-tycoon wave at the top of UGC while the wider ecosystem posted its highest-ever new island supply alongside its sharpest active-island decline - more content entering the system, less proportional discovery on offer. Key signals: 1. Volume breadth, not depth - 51M daily players (+14.9%) and 1.28B total plays (+15.3%) hit new highs while average session fell to 12.2 minutes (-4.1%). The audience expanded but the per-player engagement window shrank at the same time. 2. Brainrot format still building, not peaking - ferins' top two islands (339.6K and 272.9K peak CCU) and neverty7's Fight The Brainrot (205.8K) hold the top three UGC concurrent positions. Fight The Brainrot gained +8.5 points D1 and +8.4 points D7 week on week. ferins averages 43.9% D1 across 6 islands. This cluster is strengthening, not plateauing. 3. Supply-visibility divergence at its widest since April 2026 - 4.9K new islands launched (+10.3%, the highest week in that span) against a 4.4% fall in active islands to 48.2K. New creator intake (-2.6%) and active creators (-2.9%) both contracted. The discovery system is not absorbing supply at the rate supply is being produced. 4. Simulation & Tycoon clean sweep - first in peak CCU sum (959.6K), first in D1 retention (37.1%), first in D7 retention (28%). No other genre matched first-place standing across all three metrics this week. 5. Roguelike as the primary actionable opportunity - 93/100 score (Easy), only 20.30% of islands ever reaching the top six in the row, 45.11% of qualifying islands achieving row entry within their first week, and a clear volume threshold (~6.3x New-row baseline). Low competition, fast funnel, identifiable entry bar. Key areas to monitor for Week 35: - Fight The Brainrot's D1/D7 trajectory: at +8.5 and +8.4 points this week, a further gain in Week 35 would confirm the brainrot cluster is still building toward its audience ceiling rather than leveling off - Active island count: a second consecutive decline below 48.2K would confirm a structural discovery ceiling rather than a one-week swing - Drain the lake's chart tenure in Adventure & RPG: its avg #1.8 position was established in 4 days; whether it holds across a full Week 35 will determine if the breakout converts to sustained row presence - New creator intake: the -2.6% decline in new creators this week, if repeated, will begin showing in total creator growth within four to six weeks - Sprite Garden's D1 recovery: at 5.0% D1 with 5.8M uniques, the island either builds a returning audience in Week 35 or loses Discover momentum quickly - the retention trajectory will be the tell - Roguelike island supply response: if the 93/100 opportunity score reaches wider creator awareness, new builds in the genre may begin entering the ecosystem and compressing the opportunity window in subsequent weeks Final tip: The brainrot format is consolidated at the top - ferins and neverty7 hold those positions and the retention data shows they are still strengthening their grip. Building into that specific format now puts a new island in direct competition with titles that carry algorithmic history, audience loyalty, and the highest D1 figures in the UGC table. The more productive path is the one the data flags directly: Roguelike (93/100 opportunity, low competition, fast row-entry funnel), Adventure & RPG (week's biggest chart mover, 3.9% exposure, 171 row slots), and open-ended skill-practice or survival formats that generate the session depth and replay rates that lead every sustained engagement metric in the report. Build something specific, tag it accurately from day one, and pair the Discover strategy with an external promotion push at launch - Drain the lake reaching 659.9K uniques from near-zero this week is the clearest evidence that the external component is not optional.