How Reverb Helped Drive North American Media Momentum for Goddess of Victory: NIKKE

Intro

For live service games, major collaboration announcements can do more than generate a short-term spike in attention. When executed well, they can reinforce brand relevance, reconnect with core players, and introduce the game to broader audiences through the outlets they already follow.

For Tencent Games’ Goddess of Victory: NIKKE North American announcements, Reverb was brought in to help increase brand awareness and strengthen relationships with western gaming and consumer media. Working within a short timeline between engagement and announcement dates, Reverb executed targeted outreach around two major NIKKE collaboration announcements.   Reverb secured strong coverage across mobile, gaming, entertainment, and anime-focused outlets, including IGN YouTube, Pocket Tactics, PocketGamer, PCGamesN, Siliconera, Crunchyroll, RPG Site, Sportskeeda, Bleeding Cool, MSN.com, Yahoo Entertainment, and But Why Tho?

The Challenge

NIKKE already had clear appeal among its core  audience, but the North American collaboration campaigns needed to expand visibility beyond existing fan circles.

The objective was to increase brand awareness and grow relationships with western mainstream gaming media, while operating within a short time frame between Reverb’s engagement and the scheduled news announcement date.

That meant the campaign needed to be focused, fast-moving, and built around outlets most likely to recognize the value of the news: mobile gaming sites, mainstream gaming media, anime-focused outlets, and broader entertainment platforms.

Reverb’s Approach

Reverb built the campaign around clear, announcement-driven outreach that positioned each collaboration as a high-value news beat for the right media segments.

For the Holiday 2024 announcement round, Level Infinite announced two major in-game collaborations planned for 2025: NIKKE x Stellar Blade and NIKKE x Evangelion. Reverb’s outreach focused on the crossover appeal of both announcements, helping media understand why the collaborations mattered to mobile players, anime fans, and broader gaming audiences.

For the February 2025 announcement round, the campaign centered on the launch timing for Goddess of Victory: NIKKE x Evangelion, which was set to arrive on February 20. Reverb’s outreach emphasized the strength of the trailer assets, the relevance of the collaboration, and the opportunity for outlets to cover a major live-service content beat with strong audience interest.

Rather than treating the announcement as a single broad blast, the campaign connected the news to the outlets and audiences most likely to cover or play the game.

The Results

Across two announcement rounds, Reverb’s outreach helped secure broad media coverage and positive reception for Goddess of Victory: NIKKE in North America.

The Holiday 2024 announcement round resulted in 151 articles published, with overwhelmingly positive sentiment and no negative coverage reported in the case study. Coverage included top media placements on IGN YouTube, Pocket Tactics, Pocket Games, PCGamesN, and Siliconera.

The February 2025 announcement round resulted in 95 articles published, again with overwhelmingly positive sentiment and no negative coverage reported. The announcement earned three separate articles on MSN.com, IGN YouTube coverage for both trailers, and additional coverage from PocketGamer, RPG Site, Sportskeeda, Siliconera, Bleeding Cool, and But Why Tho?

The campaign also showed strong headline value. In the Holiday 2024 round, outlets often split the collaboration announcements into multiple stories, indicating that the news had enough audience relevance to support more than one coverage angle.

Key Highlights

The campaign helped generate 246 total articles across the two announcement rounds.

Coverage reached multiple audience segments, including mobile gaming readers, mainstream gaming audiences, anime fans, and broader entertainment audiences.

Top placements included IGN YouTube, Pocket Tactics, PocketGamer, PCGamesN, Siliconera, Crunchyroll, RPG Site, Sportskeeda, Bleeding Cool, MSN.com, Yahoo Entertainment, and But Why Tho?

Both announcement rounds were reported as overwhelmingly positive, with no negative coverage noted in the case study.

IGN YouTube featured both trailers during the February 2025 round, contributing to strong visibility around the NIKKE x Evangelion launch announcement.

Why It Worked

The campaign worked because the news had clear cross-audience appeal, and Reverb’s outreach matched each announcement to the media most likely to recognize its value.

The NIKKE x Stellar Blade and NIKKE x Evangelion announcements gave press multiple angles to cover: mobile game updates, anime crossover appeal, live-service momentum, and recognizable collaboration brands. That helped the campaign move beyond a narrow mobile-only lane and into broader gaming and entertainment coverage.

The February round also benefited from strong trailer assets and a clear launch date, giving media a timely reason to cover the announcement and giving audiences a clear next step.

Most importantly, the campaign was built around focused execution. With limited time between engagement and announcement, Reverb prioritized the outlets and coverage angles that could help NIKKE reach relevant western audiences quickly and credibly.

Planning a launch, content update, or major announcement campaign?

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