Korean Mobile Games: 6 Hits From Cookie Run to Lineage M

12 min read

There are 6 Korean mobile games worth knowing first: Cookie Run, Lineage M, Summoners War and 3 newer hits. If you want something cute and easy, start with Cookie Run: Kingdom. If you like strategy, go for Summoners War. Pick Lineage M only if you already know it’s built around some of the heaviest spending in mobile gaming.

These games matter outside Korea for one reason. The business model Korean studios refined (free to download, paid for through random draws and long-running live updates) now shapes a large share of the mobile games on your phone, including many that don’t look Korean at all.

Key takeaways

Cookie Run: Kingdom (Devsisters, 2021) is the easiest way in: it has an English version worldwide and spending stays optional for a long time.
Lineage M (NCSoft, 2017) puts a 1998 PC MMO on your phone, and its whole economy runs on paid random draws.
Since March 2024, Korean law has required publishers to show the odds of every paid random item, so look for the in-game probability page before you spend.
Most Korean hits have a global version on the regular app stores, so you rarely need a Korean account to play.

Which Korean mobile games should you play first?

Before you download anything, decide two things: how much time you want to put in each day, and how much spending pressure you can stand. Korean mobile games range from five-minute runners to MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games, where thousands of players share one world) that expect you to log in every day for years. The table below shows the six we cover in this guide side by side. The spending column is our editorial read of how hard each game pushes you to pay, not an official figure.

Game	Developer	Genre	Spending pressure (our read)	Best for	Global version?
Cookie Run: Kingdom (쿠키런: 킹덤)	Devsisters	Character RPG plus kingdom building	Low to medium	Casual players, fans of cute art	Yes, in English
Summoners War (서머너즈 워)	Com2uS	Turn-based monster collector	Medium	Strategy fans who like long-term planning	Yes, in English
Lineage M (리니지M)	NCSoft	MMORPG	Very high	Competitive guild and PvP players	Mainly for Asian markets; Lineage W is the global version
Black Desert Mobile (검은사막 모바일)	Pearl Abyss	Open-world MMORPG	Medium to high	Players who want console-like graphics	Yes
Epic Seven (에픽세븐)	Smilegate	Turn-based RPG	Medium	Fans of anime-style 2D animation	Yes
Solo Leveling: Arise (나 혼자만 레벨업: 어라이즈)	Netmarble	Action RPG	Medium	Webtoon readers, action fans	Yes, also on PC

If you want to know who’s behind these titles and how the big publishers compete, our guide to Korean game companies covers Nexon, NCSoft, Netmarble and Krafton in detail.

Cookie Run (쿠키런): the Korean mobile game that went global

Cookie Run started as a simple running game. It spread through KakaoTalk, Korea’s dominant messaging app, in 2013, when friends could invite each other and compare scores inside the chat app. Devsisters followed it with Cookie Run: OvenBreak, a runner released worldwide, and then Cookie Run: Kingdom in 2021. Kingdom is where the series broke out abroad, particularly in the United States.

What you actually do in Cookie Run: Kingdom

Kingdom splits its time between two things. One half is a team battler: you collect cookies (the characters, led by the mascot GingerBrave), level them up, and send teams of five into story stages and player-vs-player arenas. The other half is a city builder, where you produce materials, fill orders and decorate your kingdom. You can play the builder half for weeks without spending anything.

Why Cookie Run works for beginners

The appeal is the characters. Every cookie has a personality, voice lines and lore, and the series sells plush toys, snacks and stationery in Korean shops for the same reason. The game hands out a lot of free premium currency (crystals) through events, so a patient free player can collect most of the strong characters. If you’ve never played a gacha game before, this is the gentlest place to learn how one works.

Commuters on a Seoul subway train looking down at their smartphone screens — Photo: Smartphone display screen by Skitterphoto, CC0

Lineage M (리니지M) and why Korean MMOs earn so much

You can’t understand Korean mobile gaming without Lineage. NCSoft released the original Lineage on PC in 1998, and it became one of the defining games of Korea’s PC bang (internet cafe) era. Lineage M, released in 2017, rebuilt that world for phones. It has long been one of the highest-earning games in Korea.

How Lineage M is built

The core is the blood pledge (혈맹, Lineage’s word for a guild). Pledges fight over castles in large sieges, and holding a castle brings tax income and status. Your character’s strength depends heavily on items from random draws, such as transformation cards that change your character’s form and stats, and magic dolls (companion items that add stats). Top players spend very large sums, and Korean gamers have a word for them: 핵과금러, roughly “nuclear spenders”.

The “Lineage-like” debate

Lineage M’s success led to a wave of Korean MMORPGs with the same structure. Korean players call them “Lineage-likes” (리니지라이크), and they don’t mean it as a compliment: the label stands for auto-play hunting, competitive PvP and paid random draws. That model makes a lot of money, but critics inside Korea argue it squeezes out other kinds of games.

For a foreign player, the practical point is simple. Lineage M and its imitators are built for people who will compete and spend. NCSoft’s Lineage W was the attempt to bring the formula to a global audience.

Summoners War (서머너즈 워): the Korean mobile game the West knows best

Com2uS launched Summoners War: Sky Arena in 2014, and it became one of the first Korean mobile games to build a large, lasting audience in North America and Europe. Plenty of players there have played it for years without realizing it’s Korean.

How Summoners War plays

You summon monsters, mostly with Mystical Scrolls (the main summoning item). Each monster has an element: fire, water, wind, light or dark. Elements counter each other in a rock-paper-scissors loop, so team building matters more than raw power. The real depth is in runes, gear sets you farm from dungeons and fit to each monster. Building the right runes can make an ordinary monster strong, and that’s why careful free players can stay competitive in much of the game.

The esports side

Com2uS runs a world championship for the game, the Summoners War World Arena Championship (SWC), with regional qualifiers leading to a final. For dates and how to watch, check Com2uS’s official Summoners War site or its official YouTube channel. The series has also grown with spinoffs, including the MMORPG Summoners War: Chronicles.

Black Desert Mobile, Epic Seven and Solo Leveling: Arise

These three are newer and show the range of what Korean studios make. You’ll find all three on the global app stores.

Black Desert Mobile (검은사막 모바일)

Pearl Abyss built this one from its PC MMORPG Black Desert. It launched in Korea in 2018 and globally in 2019. It’s known for detailed graphics, an elaborate character creator and “life skills” such as fishing, cooking and trading. Pick it if you want an MMO that looks like a console game. Skip it if your phone is old, because it’s a heavy download.

Epic Seven (에픽세븐)

Smilegate released Epic Seven in 2018. It’s a turn-based RPG with fully animated 2D skill cutscenes that look like an anime series, and that art style is the main reason people choose it. Its structure (hero summons, gear, arena) will feel familiar if you know Summoners War.

Solo Leveling: Arise (나 혼자만 레벨업: 어라이즈)

Netmarble adapted Solo Leveling, a Korean web novel that became one of the best-known webtoons abroad, and released the game in 2024 on phones and PC. It’s an action RPG: you control Sung Jinwoo directly, dodge and combo, and collect hunters from the story. If you came to Korean culture through webtoons, start here.

Korean-made games you might not know are Korean

PUBG Mobile: based on PUBG: Battlegrounds, a battle royale from Korea’s Krafton. The mobile version was co-developed with China’s Tencent, and Krafton runs the India version, Battlegrounds Mobile India.
Blue Archive: developed by Korea’s Nexon Games, with a Japanese anime style that makes many players assume it’s Japanese.
Goddess of Victory: Nikke: made by Korean studio Shift Up and published globally by Tencent’s Level Infinite.
MapleStory M: Nexon’s mobile take on its 2003 PC classic; our MapleStory guide explains why the series has lasted so long.

What makes Korean mobile games feel Korean?

Korean studios borrow art styles from Japan and the West, but their game design has habits you’ll recognize once you’ve played two or three of these games.

Auto-play is normal, not cheating

Many Korean RPGs have an auto-battle or auto-hunting button (자동사냥). Your character fights by itself while the phone sits on your desk. Western players often see this as the game playing itself. In Korea it’s treated as a convenience for busy commuters and office workers, and the effort goes into building your character and making decisions, not into tapping.

Competition is public

Rankings, server-wide announcements when someone pulls a rare item, guild wars and castle sieges: Korean games make your progress visible to other players. This comes from the PC MMO and PC bang culture of the late 1990s and 2000s, when gaming in Korea was a social, competitive thing you did in a room full of people.

Built for fast connections and constant updates

Korea’s mobile networks let studios design always-online games with large live battles from the start. Our explainer on why Korean internet is so fast covers the background. These games also follow a “live service” rhythm: new characters, events and balance changes arrive on a steady schedule, and the Korean server often gets them first.

Webtoon and messenger tie-ins

KakaoTalk’s game platform, which launched in 2012 with hits such as SundayToz’s puzzle game Anipang (애니팡), taught Korean studios to grow through friend invites. Today the tie-ins come from webtoons and K-pop: Solo Leveling: Arise is the obvious example.

Rows of gaming computers with glowing keyboards inside a Korean PC bang internet cafe — Photo: Early 1980s Seoul Subway Map – Flickr – skinnylawyer by skinnylawyer from Los Angeles, California, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0

How gacha works in Korean mobile games

Almost every game here is free to download and earns money through gacha, named after Japanese capsule-toy machines: you spend premium currency for a random chance at a character or item. In Korea these are called probability items (확률형 아이템). On top of that, games sell battle passes (paid reward tracks for a season), monthly passes and bundles of currency and materials.

A worked example of gacha odds

Say a banner lists a 1% chance per pull for the character you want. Lots of players read that as “100 pulls guarantees it.” It doesn’t. With a 1% chance each time, you have about a 63% chance of getting it at least once in 100 pulls, so roughly one player in three still comes away with nothing. You need about 300 pulls to reach a 95% chance.

That’s why many games add a pity system (천장, literally “ceiling”), which guarantees the item after a set number of pulls. Before you spend, find out whether the banner you want has one and where the counter currently stands.

Why Korea passed a disclosure law

Gacha has been a political issue in Korea. In 2021, angry players of several games paid for trucks with LED screens to park outside publishers’ offices with protest messages, partly over unclear odds. An amendment to Korea’s Game Industry Promotion Act took effect in March 2024 and requires publishers to disclose the type and probability of paid random items. The Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC, the government body that rates and monitors games) checks compliance.

How to play Korean mobile games from outside Korea

For most players, it’s easier than people expect. Follow these steps in order.

Look for the global version first. Search the game’s English name in your regular App Store or Google Play. Cookie Run: Kingdom, Summoners War, Epic Seven, Black Desert Mobile and Solo Leveling: Arise all have global releases.
Choose the server closest to you. Many games let you pick Asia, America or Europe. A distant server means lag in real-time PvP and guild events timed for someone else’s evening.
Check whether a game is Korea-only. Some titles, and some Korean versions of global games, are only on the Korean app stores or ONE store (a Korean Android app market). Korean services often require identity verification (본인인증) with a Korean phone number, which most foreigners don’t have.
Read the terms before using a VPN. Using a VPN to get into a region-locked version, or to buy currency at another country’s price, can break the publisher’s terms of service and get your account banned. The publisher’s support page tells you which regions are supported.
Consider a PC client. Several games run on PC through official launchers or Google Play Games for PC, which makes long auto-play sessions easier on your phone battery. Check each game’s official site for supported platforms.

Language is rarely a problem in global versions, which come with full English text. If you play a Korean server for earlier updates, our guide to reading Korean helps you sound out menus and item names.

Common mistakes foreign players make

Pulling on every banner. Korean games release new characters constantly. Save your currency for characters that the community guides on official forums or the game’s subreddit rate highly over the long term.
Underestimating the time cost. Daily missions, guild contributions and timed events add up. An MMO like Lineage M can take far more daily time than Cookie Run.
Buying accounts. Account trading usually breaks the terms of service and attracts scammers. A banned or reclaimed account is gone along with everything you paid for it.
Ignoring the probability page. The odds are published for a reason. Read them before you buy, not after a bad streak.
Joining an MMO alone. Guild-based games are much harder solo. Join an active English-speaking guild early.

FAQ

What is the most popular Korean mobile game?

It depends on where you are. Inside Korea, MMORPGs such as Lineage M have long been among the highest earners. Outside Korea, Cookie Run: Kingdom, Summoners War and PUBG Mobile are the names most players recognize. For current rankings, check the top-grossing charts in the App Store and Google Play for your country.

Is Cookie Run a Korean game?

Yes. Cookie Run is made by Devsisters, a studio based in Seoul. The series spread in Korea through KakaoTalk in 2013 and reached a global audience with Cookie Run: Kingdom in 2021.

Is PUBG Mobile Korean?

Partly. PUBG: Battlegrounds comes from Korea’s Krafton, and the mobile version was co-developed with China’s Tencent, which publishes it in many markets. Krafton itself runs Battlegrounds Mobile India.

Can I play Lineage M outside Korea?

Lineage M was built mainly for Asian markets, and availability varies by country. NCSoft made Lineage W as its global version of the formula. Check NCSoft’s official site for which titles are offered in your region.

Are Korean mobile games pay-to-win?

Some are, and some aren’t. Competitive MMORPGs like Lineage M give a big edge to heavy spenders. Cookie Run: Kingdom and Summoners War leave much more room for patient free players. The probability page and the community’s views on free-to-play progress are your best guide.

Do I need to read Korean to play?

Not for the global versions, which have full English text and often other languages too. You only need Korean if you play on a Korea-only server or download a game that was never released internationally.

What to play next: a simple starter plan

Start with Cookie Run: Kingdom for a week to learn how gacha, energy and events work without much pressure. If you enjoy planning teams, move on to Summoners War and spend your first weeks learning runes rather than summoning. Try Solo Leveling: Arise if you’d rather play action than turn-based combat. Leave Lineage M for last, and only if you want guild wars and know your spending limit.

Before each new game, set a monthly budget, find the probability page and check whether the banners have a pity system. To see the competitive side of Korean gaming, look up the Summoners War World Arena Championship on Com2uS’s official channels, and read our guide on how to watch the LCK, Korea’s League of Legends league, for the PC esports scene these games grew up alongside.