Recent months have seen Resident Evil 4’s remake, Resident Evil Village, Death Stranding, and Assassin’s Creed Mirage all releasing for iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, as well as iPad devices with an M1 chip or later, though none of these games have seen decent sales.

As per the aforementioned report, Assassin’s Creed Mirage has been downloaded by iOS users roughly 123,000 times. All of games are, however, free to download, and allow access to a small portion for no cost, after which players have the option to pay full price to access the full game. As per estimates, Assassin’s Creed Mirage has seen roughly $138,000 in revenue on iOS to date, which, with a price of $49.99, would suggest that the game has sold less than 3,000 copies on the platform.

Similarly, Resident Evil 4 has seen about 357,000 downloads and $208,000 in revenue. With a price tag of $29.99, that would suggest the game has sold under 7,000 copies. Resident Evil Village, meanwhile, is estimated to have sold under 6,000 copies, with about 370,000 downloads and $92,000 in revenue. Finally, there’s Death Stranding, which has seen even more minimal sales, based on an estimated 10,600 downloads and $212,000 in revenue thus far.

Clearly, the first wave of AAA titles on iOS devices have failed to make any kind of an impact. What that will mean for future releases remains to be seen.

Currently sitting at a Metacritic score of 90, the positive reception and strong word of mouth surrounding the game has attracted people in strong numbers, and Balatro’s solo developer LocalThunk is looking to capitalize on that success and expand the game’s player base by bringing it to more potential players.

Speaking to iMore, LocalThunk recently confirmed that Balatro is in development for iPhone. The developer did not, however, provide further details on the port or when it will be out, potentially indicating that it might still be in the early stages of development. It also remains to be seen whether a Android release will also accompany the game’s iPhone version.

Balatro is currently available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. It has sold over 1 million units worldwide.

505 Games announced the delay in a recent Twitter post, saying, “Here at 505 Games and Kojima Productions, we are excited to launch Death Stranding Director’s Cut on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. We just need a little more time! Stay tuned for a new release date in early 2024.”

Recently, Kojima Productions announced that it had partnered with A24 (Everything Everywhere All at Once, Uncut Gems, The Whale) for its previously announced Death Stranding movie.

Death Stranding is available on PS5, PS4, and PC. It has been played by over 16 million players across all platforms.

Here at @505_Games and @KojiPro2015_EN, we are excited to launch #DeathStrandingDC on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. We just need a little more time!

Stay tuned for a new release date in early 2024.

We can't wait to welcome more Porters to DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT. pic.twitter.com/zCa9Tcecd4

— 505 Games (@505_Games) December 15, 2023

The announcement was made in order to show off the powerful hardware in Apple’s new flagship smartphone, with the company claiming that the A17 Pro chip now runs up to 10 percent faster than the previous generation of hardware. The GPU in the chip has also gotten an upgrade, with Apple claiming a 20 percent increase in speed, a new 6-core design, and hardware ray tracing capabilities.

The last time Ubisoft talked about Assassin’s Creed Mirage was with the release of a trailer back in August that focused on the game’s primary setting of ninth-century Baghdad. The trailer showcased a return to classic stealth-based gameplay for the franchise. Ubisoft has previously stated that Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be smaller in scope than Odyssey and Valhalla, and will instead be closer in size to Assassin’s Creed Revelations or Unity.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is slated for release on PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One on October 15.

Papers, Please tasks players as an immigration inspector for the fictional nation of Arstotzka, checking the passports of various immigrants to decide who can enter. Successfully checking passports and documents at a quick rate will earn more money, ensuring one’s family survives month to month. However, the guidelines and requirements become more stringent over time.

Other challenges can emerge but we won’t spoil everything. Garnering widespread acclaim for its gameplay mechanics, themes and writing, Papers, Please has sold over 1.8 million copies as of 2016. It’s currently available for PC, iOS for iPad, and PlayStation Vita. Check out our review for it here and the surprisingly excellent short film here.

"Papers, Please" but small. August 5th. pic.twitter.com/87o8IqfCdF

— Lucas Pope (@dukope) July 23, 2022

The ambitious Apple Arcade is now available for $4.99 per month with more than 100 games planned for release this Fall. The launch line-up is already pretty hefty and all titles are available ad-free. If you want to try before signing up, the service offers a free one month trial.

Currently live for iPhones with iOS 13, the service will also be coming to iPad, Mac and Apple TV. It supports family sharing for up to six users with the ability to continue where you left off on another device. Both online and offline play are supported.

The line-up of available titles include Capcom’s Shinsekai: Into the Depths, Simogo’s Sayonara Wild Hearts, Dodge Roll’s Exit the Gungeon, Klei Entertainment’s Hot Lava, Frogger in Toy Town, the first part of Shantae and the Seven Sirens and many more. As far as subscription services go, it’s quite the offer and Apple is pouring a hefty amount into supporting it. Stay tuned for more details on new titles as they roll out.

Mobile gaming has always been a different beast than console gaming, largely because of its control method. That, in and of itself, probably isn’t going to change much, but more options for console players to adjust to mobile games are happening, with support for both Xbox One and PS4 DualShock controllers soon to be supported on Apple devices.

We already know that Apple is planning to move more into gaming with their Apple Arcade, and now it seems they are adding in traditional controller support, too. As announced at WWDC 2019, both the new tvOS and iOS 13 will see support, meaning that you can potentially use either your Xbox One or PS4 controller on your iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV (via The Verge).

Right now there’s no official date for the updates, just that Apple is aiming for fall of this year. The Steam Link app was also recently added to iOS, so it’s entirely possible that you could use this in tandem at some point in time, though nothing is confirmed. We’ll keep you updated.

You can soon play Civilization 6 on your Nintendo Switch, but in case you have a hankering for portable Civ right now, and/or don’t have a Switch, boy have we got some good news for you. Civilization 6 is available right now on iPhone. I presume this is actually the same version that came out on iPad, just shrunk down to an iPhone.

But, you ask me, how does a game like Civ 6 translate over to a small screen like the iPhone’s? Apparently pretty well. At least judging by the launch trailer that Aspyr Media, who ported it to the platform, put out (you can see this trailer for yourself below).

But here’s the catch— of course there’s a catch, you knew there’d be one. This version is going to be very expensive. It’s $24 right now, which is already expensive for a mobile game, but starting October 16, it will go up to $60, which is practically unheard of in the mobile market.

If you want to give it a test go for yourself, the first 60 turns are free, so you can download it and see how it is. You need an iPhone 7 or later, running on iOS 11.

The iOS App Store, which Apple launched ten years ago today, set off a revolution in gaming. Mobile games, which until then had been an underserved niche, exploded in popularity, becoming a pillar of the gaming market, attracting the masses of casual gamers that Nintendo had hoped to capture with the Wii, and going on to become the single largest segment of the gaming market by revenue.

The effects of the mobile gaming revolution can be felt to this day. Most major companies in the world- EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Square Enix, Epic, Sega, The Pokemon Company, Konami, Sony, Microsoft, Take Two, even Nintendo– have mobile marketing strategies. Monetization and distribution methods popularized by smartphones, including free to play games and microtransactions and lootboxes, have become mainstays even of AAA console gaming. Nintendo’s Switch is a direct response to the rise of mobile gaming, which chipped away at so much of its previous console and handheld market.

As I am sure you have realized from reading that list above yourself, the App Store’s influence has not all been positive. While it gave a platform for indie games to do well, it devalued games with its race to the bottom mentality pricing, and led to the proliferation of popular exploitative strategies like loot boxes.

But the App Store, and indeed, the mobile market itself, is starting to stabilize now- and who knows, maybe, going forward, we will see it mature into a meaningful place to play great games on an ongoing basis. I sure hope we do. The potential of mobile as a platform for video games continues to remain immense.

After its recent invite-only test, Epic Games has announced that Fortnite Mobile is now available to all iOS users. Availability will depend on the iOS device owned though. Supported smartphones include iPhone SE, 6S, 7, 8 and X while tablets include iPad Mini 4, Air 2, Pro and iPad 2017.

Though Fortnite Mobile could be downloaded on the iOS App Store since the test began, only those with invites could play it. You’ll still need to create an account on Epic’s site to play the game so head here.

Fortnite Mobile has received praise for providing a complete experience despite the limitations of mobile hardware. Weekly challenges and such are available along with optional cross-play to other platforms. Of course, it doesn’t look as good as the PC and home console versions but it’s still very impressive and runs great. The Android version of Fortnite Mobile doesn’t have a release date but Epic has confirmed that it’s still in development.