A product once considered "niche" has just reached 12 million DAU.

On August 22, Giant Network officially announced that the DAU for *Supernatural Task Force* had surpassed 12 million—just six months after it had announced reaching 10 million DAU.

In today’s industry context, this news actually defies conventional wisdom. In most people’s minds, mobile games with high DAU are typically the exclusive domain of top-tier game developers; without an established IP or ecosystem support, most titles must build their user base from scratch. Yet *Supernatural Task Force* has quietly broken this mold.As a Chinese-style “light horror” game that was once labeled “niche,” it took just over a year to reach 12 million DAU.

Interestingly, the industry tends to attribute this success to a “genre bonus”—after all, *Supernatural Task Force* started with a small team and a modest budget. But this bonus alone does not explain “why, a year later, *Supernatural Task Force*’s DAU continues to hit new highs.”

Some also believe that *Supernatural Task Force* made spot-on choices at key junctures. For example, the recent collaboration with *Ghost Blows Out the Lamp* and the booth at ChinaJoy generated a buzz that took *Supernatural Task Force* beyond its usual audience, while at the same time, on the eve of the summer movie season, the team quietly laid the groundwork for two key distribution channels—the HarmonyOS system and the Douyin Mini Games Center.

After its launch on HarmonyOS, it swept the top spots on the Huawei App Market’s download chart, Game Center’s popularity chart, and trending chart, among others.

In July, the game launched on Douyin’s Mini Games Hub and quickly climbed into the top three on the charts. While tapping into Douyin’s broad user base during the summer vacation season, it brought in over 1 million new daily users for *Supernatural Task Force* and over 600,000 new daily followers for its official Douyin account.

"Making the most of limited resources" seems to have become this team’s specialty: using a small team to attract tens of millions of users and leveraging niche topics to break into the mainstream market—it’s nothing short of an industry miracle.

01

Niche Products Enter the Mainstream Market

Among the player community of *Supernatural Task Force*, there’s a saying that’s long been circulating: “Play it alone, and it’s a horror game; play it with a group, and it’s a comedy game.” This quote clearly illustrates that content and social interaction form the foundation of this game.

To many people, the content of the Supernatural Operations group can be understood, quite simply and bluntly, as a "search, fight, and retreat" scenario with a touch of horror. However, I believe what players are really looking for is the variety of enjoyment that comes from the gameplay itself.

To give a very simple example, the recently launched “Infinite Dreams” game mode features a collaboration with Quanzhou string puppetry, bringing a Republican-era opera theater into a randomly generated, multi-level dream map. Compared to other “search-fight-retreat” games, which tend to focus heavily on the “search” and “fight” elements,this new mode has chosen to make bold innovations in the “retreat” aspect.

As soon as players enter the map, they can push their own personal cart around to “shop” wherever they like. Use string to tie together various recyclables, place them “safely” in the cart, and then make a quick getaway.

It might not sound like much, but the innovative aspect of this gameplay lies in “how to safely transport the loot.” On the one hand, transporting loot connected by strings isn’t exactly easy—precise positioning and careful angle selection are crucial;on the other hand, any bumps or knocks the loot sustains during transport will affect its final appraised value. That’s right—it’s possible that the big gold you worked so hard to get could end up being appraised at 0 after all that hassle.

As a result, there are countless videos on various video platforms offering tips on how to safely transport Da Jin. One content creator tried to explain the process step by step, only to knock off 20,000 yuan right at the start—so he just gave up and went all out. One viewer commented, “Streamer, if we follow your instructions, will we really be able to evacuate successfully?”

Not to mention that modes like "Mountain Climbing Simulator," "Haunted House Hide-and-Seek," and "Monster Club" have no direct connection to the "Search, Attack, and Retreat" gameplay, yet the fun they offer has genuinely attracted a large number of players.

In addition, collaborations with numerous IPs and cultural elements—such as *Ghost Blows Out the Lamp*, *Dream of the Red Chamber*, and the Qi Baishi Art Center—have significantly broadened the user base and expanded the potential user market. For example, on Xiaohongshu, users can see gamers creating short skits using *Dream of the Red Chamber*-themed character skins, which have attracted a large number of likes.

The "Phoenix Returns to the Waves" skin, created in collaboration with the Qi Baishi Art Center, draws inspiration from the Qi School of ink wash painting and features abundant gilded feather embellishments; many players have created and shared videos featuring this skin.

Of course, in addition to its online content, the Supernatural Task Force continues to generate buzz in offline settings as well. At the recently concluded CJ Expo, the official booth—designed around the theme of Nuo opera—continued to “dominate feeds” across various social media platforms.

A giant statue of a Nuo dancer, paired with a Nuo dance performance, sparked widespread discussion on Xiaohongshu, quickly becoming a trending topic with nearly 13 million views. Many users said the in-person exhibition booth was “too awe-inspiring,” and wished they were in Shanghai to see it with their own eyes.

Even a reporter from CCTV stopped by the event in person to show support and give it a thumbs-up, and mainstream media outlets like CCTV covered the story, noting, “A dark horse emerged in 2025: *Supernatural Task Force*, a Chinese-style adventure game that incorporates many traditional Chinese cultural elements.”

A vast array of rich content provides the ideal platform for social interaction among players, and the resulting content and player ecosystem has become the most fertile ground for major social media and video platforms, with this effect further amplified through secondary sharing among players.The powerful content matrix formed by the two pillars of UGC and PGC has brought massive traffic and attention to the Supernatural Task Force, driving its DAU to skyrocket in a short period of time.

According to data, in just over a year since its launch, the official Douyin account for *Supernatural Task Force* has surpassed 3.05 million followers, with a single hashtag generating over 39 billion views;On Xiaohongshu, it has 2.58 million followers, with topic views reaching 10.2 billion and over 86 million discussions; on Kuaishou, it has 4.88 million followers, with topic views totaling 122.6 billion.

A wealth of data also highlights one key point: *Supernatural Task Force* now faces an incredibly vast market. By leveraging its own innovative content and player community, this niche game—once it breaks out of its niche—will gradually evolve into a mainstream product.

02

A Small Team Drives Tens of Millions in DAU

Some people might be curious: How exactly did *Supernatural Task Force* pull this off? While the massive popularity and data mentioned above may only be superficial results, what truly underpins these numbers is the development team’s unique understanding of young gamers.

To many people, games are more like a tool for personal expression; in many games hailed as masterpieces, one can sense the creators’ highly personal perspectives and emotions.However, for multiplayer online mobile games like *Supernatural Task Force*, the developers prefer to adopt a more humble approach while preserving the game’s “spirit,” positioning themselves as providers of content, gameplay, and emotional value.

In fact, it’s clear from the early performance of *Supernatural Task Force* that UGC has already accounted for a significant portion of player-driven content.From the earliest “Horse-Head Dance” to the subsequent “Wealth-Bringing Dance” and “Milk Dragon Dance”—and even the many players who specifically create character skits based on viral in-game memes—it’s clear that the developers have handed the stage back to the players, using the game’s vast content to allow its young core user base to express themselves.

If you’ve paid close attention, you’ll notice that on major platforms, related topics and content often include the tag: “Good thing it’s supernatural—otherwise it would’ve gone viral.”At first, I didn’t really understand what this tag meant, until I saw a comment from a player: “Content this abstract would never catch on if it were in any other game.” Only then did I realize that this was actually an inside joke among the core user base.

Using a playful, meme-based approach to achieve collective user validation of the product—and thereby foster organic sharing—is indeed a rather rare strategy. However, viewed from another angle, it also reflects players’ absolute认同 with the “distinctive culture” of the Supernatural Operations Group.

Since the players are having so much fun, it wouldn’t make sense for the developers not to join in.

As a result, rather than remaining a bystander, the official team has taken it upon itself to join in the fun and lead players in playing along with the memes—which has become its second mission.

The official channel for *Supernatural Task Force* is one of those rare ones that likes to “jump on trends”—in one video, they had a few characters “drink a cup of milk tea and shake it” while dancing the milk tea dance, and in the very next video, they had a few characters take turns showing off their “facial expressions.”

They even created a weekly newsletter called “Weekly Fun News Roundup,” dedicated to collecting and reporting on (and praising) players’ meme-based antics and creative shenanigans.For example, when players used musical instruments in a brawl, it was spun as them forming a band to cultivate their artistic sensibilities. When a bug allowed them to fly through the skies and burrow underground, it was jokingly dubbed “supernatural flight,” sparking a “Great Era of Cultivation” among the entire player base.Previously, when asked a very abstract question—what would happen if a meme were missed—the developers calmly replied with just three words: “We’ll make it up.” Reflecting on all these past incidents, when I think about why players can be so outlandish, I can’t help but quip, “Just look at the kind of players you’ve raised.”

This has created a complete cycle: players create memes, the official team picks up on them, the product responds, and players continue the trend. Social media has become the best platform for this, significantly boosting user engagement and the desire to share. The resulting expansion beyond the game’s original audience has also attracted more potential users to join the community.

A product brimming with creativity, in theory, cannot exist without an exceptionally unique team.

However, the team behind *Supernatural Task Force* is very low-key; the only label the outside world associates with them is likely “young.” According to reports, the majority of the team were born in the 2000s, while the lead artist and lead designer were born in the late 1990s—a fact that serves as the best illustration of Giant’s approach to talent.At the corporate level, the company has shown the utmost tolerance toward young people, and the creation of this product is precisely the result of Giant’s efforts to encourage young talent and provide them with opportunities.

With the annual fall campus recruitment season fast approaching, Giant—a game company that releases a blockbuster title every few years—has people wondering whether the next star producer is already on the way, and whether we’ll see more outstanding titles like *Supernatural Task Force* in the future.

Conclusion

Some say that the greatest advantage of niche products is that, once they succeed, they can easily create barriers that are difficult to overcome.

Judging by *Supernatural Task Force*, there are at least three layers of barriers, each building upon the last.The first layer is thematic differentiation: high-quality titles that blend Chinese-style “micro-horror” with a combination of search, combat, and escape mechanics remain scarce in the mobile gaming market to this day. The second layer involves content and the player ecosystem—continuous innovation in gameplay coupled with a user-generated content (UGC) community worth tens of billions. This kind of accumulation cannot be achieved overnight simply by pouring money into it.The third layer is cultural momentum: from the Nuo Opera stage to CCTV appearances, and collaborations with Qi Baishi, Mount Huang, and *Dream of the Red Chamber*—these aren’t mere IP cash-ins, but rather reinterpretations of cultural symbols that transform cultural content into playable experiences.

Content can be pieced together, and gameplay can be imitated, but the successful concepts behind creation and operation are difficult to copy. *Supernatural Task Force* has always maintained a clear positioning within the “mild horror” genre: no matter how well mild horror elements and social gameplay are combined, the most important thing is to serve the core user base well and take its unique features to the extreme.