Whiteout took #1 back, then handed it straight back again
On August 17th Whiteout Survival sat at 5th in Korea. A week later it was #1, and the week after that it was 5th again. It climbed in the US and Japan too, but in both it finished below where it started. Kingshot, from the same publisher, never rose at all.
Ranks are read directly from the Apple App Store grossing charts (games, top 15 per country), taken once a week on August 17th, 24th and 31st — three readings. “outside 15” means the game was not in the top 15 that week; the chart is published to 15th place only, so we cannot say what rank it held.
Two weeks ago we wrote here that three western survival titles slipped at once, and left two things to watch. Whether Whiteout would come back, and whether Tasty Travels was a one-week visitor. Both have answers now. The first one is shorter than we expected.
It climbed, and then put it down again
Whiteout had fallen to 5th in Korea. At the next reading it was back at #1. At the one after that it was 5th again.
| Whiteout SurvivalCentury Games | 08-17 | 08-24 | 08-31 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇰🇷 Korea | 5 | 1 | 5 |
| 🇺🇸 US | 9 | 7 | 11 |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | 7 | 4 | 10 |
Read the Korean row alone and the game looks resilient. Read the two rows under it and that reading does not survive. The US and Japan climbed once in the middle too, but they climbed to a lower place than they had started from, and finished lower still.
Only Korea broke even
Pull out the two steps and the difference is plain.
| Country | Aug 17 | Won back | Gave up again | Aug 31 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇰🇷 Koreaeven | 5 | +4 | -4 | 5 |
| 🇺🇸 the US2 lower | 9 | +2 | -4 | 11 |
| 🇯🇵 Japan3 lower | 7 | +3 | -6 | 10 |
Whiteout Survival only. A plus sign means the rank improved, a minus sign that it slipped.
Korea won back four and gave up four. The US won back two and gave up four; Japan won back three and gave up six. It is not that the recovery is missing outside Korea — it is that the recovery does not cover the fall.
Korea won back what it lost. The other two won back half.
The two that fell with it never climbed
There were three games in that table two weeks ago. Only one of them goes up and down.
| KingshotCentury Games | 08-17 | 08-24 | 08-31 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇰🇷 Korea | 7 | 9 | 12 |
| 🇺🇸 US | 6 | 9 | 9 |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | outside 15 | outside 15 | outside 15 |
| Last WarFUNFLY | 08-17 | 08-24 | 08-31 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇰🇷 Korea | outside 15 | 14 | outside 15 |
| 🇺🇸 US | 14 | 11 | outside 15 |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | 13 | 8 | outside 15 |
Kingshot read 7th, 9th, 12th in Korea — one direction throughout. Last War returned to the top 15 once and was pushed out again, and on August 31st it is absent from all three countries. Whiteout's up-and-down is a property of that one game, not of the survival genre. What happened to Kingshot after this is in our Kingshot deep dive.
The merge title was not a one-week visitor
The second question has a simple answer.
| Tasty TravelsCentury Games | 08-17 | 08-24 | 08-31 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇰🇷 Korea | 14 | 13 | 11 |
| 🇺🇸 US | 12 | 12 | 13 |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | outside 15 | outside 15 | outside 15 |
While the same publisher's survival title sank to 12th in Korea, its merge title moved from 14th to 11th. Two weeks ago we wrote that what retreated was the genre and not the company. Two more readings later, that sentence still holds. How merge games make their money is covered in our Gossip Harbor deep dive.
Two countries got a new #1 on August 31st — 🇰🇷 Zeus: God of Hubris (Com2uS) · 🇯🇵 Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle (Bandai Namco). Neither was in the top 15 at the previous reading. Both had only just arrived, so we are not reading anything into them here.
- Source — Apple App Store official charts (games, top 15 per country), quoted as published.
- When — three readings: Aug 17, Aug 24 and Aug 31. Gaps of 7.3 and 6.5 days.
- We left out the August 16th reading — it is fifteen hours from the August 17th one and cannot be counted as a separate week.
- “outside 15” — the game was not in the top 15 that week, and we cannot say what rank it held.
- Rank is not revenue — nothing here tells you the gap between #1 and #5.
- We have not written why — an update, a banner, a marketing push: the chart cannot establish which.
- The August 24th reading never ran as an article and is used here only as a midpoint.
- Genre labels are ours. Full method and limits are in our data methodology. We do not reproduce game art or review text.
Correction (2026-09-19) — this piece first ran with four readings, starting from one taken on August 16th, and said Whiteout had “made the #1↔#5 round trip exactly twice.” The August 16th and 17th readings are fifteen hours apart and cannot be counted as separate weeks, so the article now starts from August 17th with three. What is left is one trip, 5th → 1st → 5th, not two. The US and Japan figures, and the conclusion that only Korea broke even, are unchanged.