Brawl Stars

Is Brawl Stars safe for kids?

Brawl Stars is safe enough for most older children if a parent locks purchases on the phone. Matches are short cartoon shootouts with strangers, and text chat lives in clubs behind an age-tailored filter. The bigger questions are money and data. Supercell removed paid loot boxes in 2022, yet random reward drops have returned, and its privacy policy allows wider ad sharing than the light App Store label suggests.

We score it 58/100, one point below its sister game Clash of Clans (59) and ahead of PUBG Mobile (54) and Free Fire (45). No regulator has fined Supercell over the game.

Loot boxes, Starr Drops and Brawler Blast

Brawl Stars used to run on Brawl Boxes: paid or earned boxes with random Brawlers and upgrades inside. On 12 December 2022 Supercell removed them and introduced Starr Road, where players spent Credits on a Brawler they had chosen. Credits came from the Brawl Pass and Trophy Road, and could also be bought in the shop. Supercell said at the time that rewards would be "more fair and predictable".

Randomness came back by another door. Starr Drops, earned by winning matches, open into a random reward. In the August 2026 update Supercell replaced Starr Road with Brawler Blast, where Credits pay for random "shooting gallery" openings that can unlock Brawlers or fragments that turn into random gadgets, gears and star powers. The same notes announce a "new gacha coffin" for the Halloween event, without details. We could not confirm whether any of these can be bought directly with gems, and Apple's listing does not flag loot boxes. We treat them as a spending risk for children anyway, because the reward is a surprise and the currency behind it has been sold.

The visible prices are not huge by mobile standards. The US App Store lists gem packs from $1.99 to $19.99, a Season Pass at $6.99 or $9.99 and Brawl Pass Plus at $12.99. Supercell says its games sell items from $0.99 to $99.99.

Who your child can talk to

Supercell's parent guide covers all its games. In Brawl Stars, players who join a club get its text chat. Clubs can be open to anyone, invite-only or closed. An automatic word filter checks every message, player name and club description, and it is stricter for young players, blocking attempts to share personal details or send people elsewhere online. Players below the local age limit can join only family-friendly clubs. Messages can be reported from the chat, and Supercell says moderators review reports within 72 hours.

That design keeps Brawl Stars closer to Clash of Clans than to Fortnite, where the FTC found that on-by-default voice chat exposed children to harassment. The filter follows the age a player enters, so a child who gives an adult birth date loses these limits.

What data Supercell collects

Brawl Stars has one of the lighter tracking labels among big free games. Apple lists only advertising data as used to track you. Linked to your identity are purchase history, coarse location, email address, gameplay content, support messages, IDs, usage and diagnostics. On Google Play, Supercell says app interactions and device IDs are shared with other companies for analytics and advertising.

The privacy policy is shared by all Supercell games and is broader than the label. It allows personalised ads in the game and elsewhere on the basis of Supercell's "legitimate interest", with consent where the law requires it, as in the EU. Ad partners receive device identifiers, and Supercell and its partners link browsers and devices into a "device graph". Chat logs and IP addresses are collected from every player. Players who give an age under 16, or a lower local threshold such as 14, get fewer social features, and the parent guide says they see no personalised ads or offers. Since August 2026 players can also switch off personalised offers in the settings.

The record with regulators and courts

No regulator has fined or ordered Supercell over Brawl Stars. In April 2019 South Korea's game industry self-regulation body listed it, with Clash Royale, among games that broke its code on publishing loot box odds, after Supercell declined two recommendations. That was a self-regulatory finding, not a government order, and we take a few points off for it.

In the US, a 2020 class action claimed that loot boxes in Brawl Stars and Clash Royale were illegal gambling. A federal court in northern California dismissed it with prejudice in January 2023. The EU consumer action opened against Supercell on 30 September 2026 names Clash of Clans, not Brawl Stars, so it is context here.

How to set it up for a child

1. Create a Supercell ID with an email address you control, and enter your child's real birth date in the game.
2. Turn on Ask to Buy or Screen Time on iPhone, or purchase approval in Family Link on Android.
3. Keep your child in a closed club of friends, and show them how to report a message.
4. Explain that gem generators, account traders and cheap gem sellers are how accounts are stolen, and that the email login code goes to no one.

How we scored it

Privacy (50) is the weakest factor: the label is light, but the policy allows device-level ad sharing. Regulatory record (84) is the strongest, with no fines and only a self-regulatory listing in Korea. Scams and harmful content (56) reflects filtered, text-only club chat offset by the return of random rewards, and security (58) reflects password-free email logins with no authenticator option or public bug bounty.