Clash Royale

Is Clash Royale safe for kids?

Clash Royale is safe enough for most older children once a parent locks purchases on the phone. Matches are three-minute card battles against strangers who can only send preset emotes, and text chat lives inside clans behind an age-tailored filter. The real issue is money. Ten years after launch, Supercell still says in its own store description that some items "can also be purchased for real money (including random items)", and its privacy policy allows more ad sharing than the light App Store label suggests.

We score it 58/100, the same as its sister game Brawl Stars and one point below Clash of Clans (59). No regulator has fined Supercell over Clash Royale.

Random items and what they cost

Clash Royale is built around collecting and upgrading more than 100 cards. Progress comes from winning battles, from the season's Diamond Pass and from the shop. Supercell does not hide that luck is part of what it sells: the App Store text tells parents to disable in-app purchases if they do not want game items, "including random items", bought for real money. Germany's USK, whose rating Google Play shows there, gives the game a 12+ rating and lists three reasons: increased incentives to buy, pressure to play excessively, and in-game purchases that include random items.

The prices on the US App Store run from a $0.99 "Fistful of Gems" to a $19.99 "Barrel of Gems", with special offers between $2.99 and $9.99 and the Diamond Pass at $11.99. Those are modest by mobile standards, but the game pushes timed offers between matches, and a competitive player can feel stuck without them.

Odds disclosure has been a sore point. In April 2019 Korea's game policy self-regulation body published its list of games that broke its code on loot box odds. Clash Royale was on it, after five requests over five months while it sat in Google Play's top 100. Brawl Stars joined the same list that month. It was a self-regulatory finding, not a government order, but it shows Supercell declining a disclosure that the code asked of every top game.

Who your child can talk to

Battles are one-on-one or two-on-two, and the only way to talk to an opponent is a set of emotes, which can be muted. Messaging happens in clans, where members chat, request and donate cards, and fight clan wars together. Clans can be open to anyone, invite-only or closed, so a child who joins an open clan will chat with strangers.

Supercell's parent guide covers all its games. An automatic word filter checks every message, player name and clan description, and it is stricter for young players, blocking attempts to share personal details or send someone elsewhere online. Players below the local age limit can join only family-friendly clans. Messages can be reported from the chat, and Supercell says its moderators may take up to 72 hours to review a report. The filter follows the birth date the player enters, so a child who claims to be an adult loses these limits.

That keeps Clash Royale closer to Clash of Clans than to Roblox or Fortnite, where voice chat and user-made spaces bring far more contact with strangers.

What Supercell collects

Apple's label for Clash Royale lists only usage data as used to track players across other companies' apps and websites. Linked to identity are purchase history, coarse location, email address, gameplay content, support messages, user and device IDs, usage data and diagnostics. On Google Play, Supercell says device IDs and app interactions are shared with other companies for analytics and advertising, and that in-app messages are collected for safety and fraud checks.

The privacy policy, effective 11 March 2026, is shared by all Supercell games and goes further than the label. It relies on Supercell's "legitimate interest" for personalised ads, asks for consent where the law requires it, and says Supercell and its partners may link browsers and devices into a "device graph". Players who give an age under 16, or a lower local threshold, get fewer social features, and the parent guide says Supercell shows them no personalised ads or offers and does not share their data with third parties for ad targeting.

Accounts and the regulators

Supercell ID uses one-time codes sent by email instead of passwords, which removes password reuse but makes the email inbox the key to the account. There is no authenticator app option. Supercell's security.txt file gives a vulnerability contact, and we found no public bug bounty programme. The parent guide warns that outside gem sellers often ask to log in to "deliver" items and end up taking the account.

In the US, a 2020 class action claimed that loot boxes in Clash Royale and Brawl Stars were illegal gambling. A federal court in northern California dismissed it with prejudice in January 2023. On 30 September 2026 EU consumer authorities opened coordinated actions against nine game companies, Supercell among them, but the games flagged in the market check include Clash of Clans, not Clash Royale. Both are context on this page, not findings against the game.

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.
2. Turn on Ask to Buy or Screen Time purchase limits on iPhone, or purchase approval in Family Link on Android.
3. Keep your child in a closed or invite-only clan of friends, and show them how to mute emotes and report a message.
4. Explain that random rewards are a gamble with real money behind them, and agree a monthly budget before the first season pass.
5. Tell them the email login code goes to no one, and that cheap gem sellers are how accounts are stolen.

How we scored it

Privacy (50) is the weakest factor: the label is light, but the shared policy allows device-level ad sharing. Regulatory record (84) is the strongest, with no fines and a few points off for the 2019 Korean listing. Scams and harmful content (52) sits below Brawl Stars because Supercell openly sells random items here, while filtered, text-only clan chat keeps contact with strangers narrow.