In the mid-2000s, video games were undergoing a massive identity crisis. You had the rise of gritty shooters, the birth of the Wii, and for some reason, a giant plastic-masked mascot creeping around bushes to hand out Whoppers. If you were around in 2006, you remember the King. He was everywhere. But the weirdest part of that marketing blitz wasn't the commercials; it was Burger King Sneak King. It’s a game that shouldn't have worked, arguably didn't work as a "game," yet managed to sell millions of copies. Honestly, the story behind how a fast-food chain became one of the biggest software publishers of the year is more interesting than the gameplay itself.
The Advergame That Broke the Rules
Usually, when a brand makes a game, it’s a flash-based mess on a website or a terrible mobile app. Burger King did something different. They partnered with Blitz Games—a UK-based developer known for SpongeBob SquarePants titles—and decided to release three full Xbox and Xbox 360 titles simultaneously. Burger King Sneak King was the flagship. Along with Big Bumpin' and PocketBike Racer, these discs were sold for $3.99 with the purchase of a value meal.
The concept was simple, albeit terrifying. You played as "The King." Your goal? Creep up behind hungry construction workers, joggers, and office employees to surprise them with a hot meal. If you were too loud, they’d get spooked. If you were successful, you’d perform a flamboyant dance while they ate a burger in a state of confused bliss. It was bizarre. It felt like a stealth-action parody of Metal Gear Solid, but instead of a tranquilizer dart, you had a sourdough starter.
The audacity of the project is what stands out now. Most people assume these were throwaway experiences, but they were actually dual-compatible discs. They worked on both the original Xbox and the then-new Xbox 360. This was a technical feat at the time. Blitz Games had to develop a custom engine to ensure the "King" looked equally creepy on both generations of hardware.
Why Did Sneak King Sell 3.2 Million Copies?
You might think 3.2 million is a typo. It isn't. According to data from the NPD Group and various business reports from that era, the Burger King games were a massive commercial success. For a few weeks in late 2006, the King was genuinely competing with Gears of War for shelf space in American living rooms.
But why?
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The price point was the primary driver. At $3.99, it was an impulse buy. You’re already buying a burger, so why not spend four bucks on a meme? This was before "meme culture" was a formalized term, but the King's "Creepy" persona was already a viral sensation. People bought it just to see if it was as weird as the commercials suggested. Spoiler: it was.
The Mechanics of Creeping
Let's be real about the gameplay. Burger King Sneak King is not a masterpiece. It consists of several open-world levels—a sawmill, a construction site, a suburban neighborhood—where you hide behind boxes and trees. There's a "flourish" meter. If you time your button presses correctly during the delivery, the King does a more elaborate dance.
The AI was famously bad. You could be crouched two feet away from an NPC, and as long as you were behind a thin lamp post, they wouldn't see you. But there’s a strange, accidental charm to it. It captures a specific moment in the mid-2000s when companies were willing to take massive, weird risks just to see what would stick to the wall.
The Legacy of the King's Plastic Face
When we look back at the history of "advergaming," there is a clear line between Before Sneak King and After Sneak King. Before this, games were mostly promotional tools for kids' movies. After this, brands realized they could actually command a presence on a console's dashboard.
The King himself was eventually retired by Burger King in 2011 because his "creepy" vibe was supposedly scaring off customers, specifically women and children. The brand moved toward a more food-focused marketing strategy. However, the game lived on in bargain bins and ironically-fueled speedrunning communities. Yes, people actually speedrun this game. The world record for completing all levels in Burger King Sneak King is a testament to human dedication toward the absurd.
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A Masterclass in Marketing, Not Design
Blitz Games didn't have much time to make these. Reports suggest the development cycle was incredibly short—roughly seven months from concept to gold master. Considering the technical constraints of making a game work on two different console generations simultaneously, it’s a miracle the game even boots up.
- Platform: Xbox / Xbox 360
- Developer: Blitz Games
- Publisher: Burger King
- Release Date: November 19, 2006
- Total Sales: Over 3.2 million units (combined for all three titles)
The "King" games were actually credited with boosting Burger King's fourth-quarter comparable store sales by 40% during the promotion. That is an insane statistic for a software tie-in. It proved that if you make something weird enough and cheap enough, people will buy it regardless of the "review scores."
Collecting Sneak King Today
If you're looking to find a copy today, you're in luck. Because there are millions of these things floating around, they aren't exactly rare. You can usually find them at retro game stores for under five dollars, often still in the original paper sleeve or the plastic case.
There's a specific irony in the fact that many "prestige" games from 2006 are now forgotten, yet everyone still remembers the burger game. It’s a piece of cultural history. It represents the peak of the "Mascot Era," where characters like the King, the Geico Gecko, and the Cavemen were genuine celebrities.
What We Learned From the King
Looking back, the success of Burger King Sneak King taught the industry that the "how" matters more than the "what." The game wasn't good, but the distribution was genius. It met customers exactly where they were—at the drive-thru.
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It also highlighted the power of leaning into a brand's "flaws." Burger King knew people thought the King was unsettling. Instead of pivoting away, they leaned into the horror-adjacent nature of a giant, unmoving plastic mask. They made him a stalker. And for some reason, we all paid four dollars to join him.
How to Experience Sneak King Now
If you actually want to play this in 2026, you'll need original hardware. While some Xbox 360 games are backward compatible on Series X, the Burger King trilogy is a notable exception. These games exist in a sort of licensing limbo. Because they were published by a fast-food company and developed by a defunct studio, the chances of a digital remaster are zero.
- Find the hardware: You need an original Xbox or an Xbox 360.
- Scour the bins: Check local thrift stores or eBay. Don't pay more than $10 for the whole set.
- Adjust your expectations: It’s a stealth game where the "weapon" is a Whopper. Treat it like the interactive joke it was meant to be.
- Embrace the jank: The controls are stiff, the camera is erratic, and the King’s stare will haunt your dreams. That's the point.
The era of the "big budget" weirdo tie-in is mostly over. Nowadays, we get DLC skins in Fortnite or Call of Duty. While that’s certainly more efficient for the marketing departments, it lacks the chaotic energy of a physical disc being handed to you through a drive-thru window alongside a large fry. Burger King Sneak King was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment that proved, for one brief second, that the King of burgers could also be the king of the sales charts.
To truly understand this era of gaming, you have to look past the polygons. You have to look at the business model. This wasn't about making a "Game of the Year." It was about creating a physical object that forced people to talk about a brand. In that regard, Sneak King is one of the most successful games ever made. It’s a 10/10 in brand engagement and a 3/10 in stealth mechanics, and honestly, that’s a balance we might never see again.