Here are the 12 best Apple Arcade games.
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Apple introduced Apple Arcade, the first subscription-based game platform for mobile devices, desktop computers, and every screen in your home. But which of these games are worth your time, and which ones are worth subscribing to the service?
The subscription will offer more than 100 new and exclusive games, originals from the famous developers Hironobu Sakaguchi, Ken Wong, Will Wright and many more. With Apple Arcade, you will have full freedom to choose from this collection of titles specially created for you to play without limits and without ads. Plus, you don’t need to make additional purchases.
You can play offline and on all your devices
You will also be able to play all the games offline, and some will even be compatible with other game controllers. Players will be able to access the games from their iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple TV, and will be able to resume the game from where they left off, from the same device or another.
It’s early days, and no one outside of the companies involved has played any of these new games. But after seeing these images and screenshots, we already have our selection of featured titles.
In this article, we select the 12 best Apple Arcade games:
Beyond a sky of steel
This sequel to the beloved 1994 classic Beneath A Steel Sky looks very promising. It’s a puzzle that has you fight against the artificial intelligence system that was activated at the end of the original game, and that explores themes of privacy and corporate power.
As in 1994, the team worked with comic book artist Dave Gibbons (a 2000 AD and Watchmen veteran) to create a character look, and the world design is very ambitious in scope, described as a console game. Complete for mobile devices. The setting, Union City, looks amazing.
Watch the trailer for more information.
Fancy
Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy and this intriguing title, says that Fantasian is a game “that shouldn’t exist.”
Fascinatingly (and impractically one might imagine), the developers physically built a set for each scene and then animated the 3D characters on top, resulting in a unique look. And based on Sakaguchi’s tremendous track record, we’d expect the game to be a lot of fun.
hot lava
If you ever played ‘the floor is lava’ as a kid, which is perhaps more American than British, this game will push all sorts of nostalgia buttons in your brain.
In this case, of course, there is no need to use the wonderful power of a child’s imagination because the floor is literally lava, and it is up to you to navigate the rooms and levels through furniture, supports and pipes, etc. It’s done through a 3D first-person perspective, something that usually results in inaccurate jumping, so we hope to experiment with that.
The cartoony aesthetic is pretty nice too, with traces of Team Fortress influence, possibly.
lego brawls
You can’t go wrong with a little Lego, and this light-hearted number provides a welcome contrast to some of the more introspective, mature food we’re seeing elsewhere.
It’s a 2D platformer with bright and colorful graphics, laser guns, mechs, and what seems like a lot of customization options for your sprite.
Natural
“We’re not sure of another game that uses school-of-fish behavior as its main gameplay mechanism,” says Denis Mikan, Lifelike’s mastermind. The game is based on the patterns and behaviors observed in nature (fish, birds, microbes), and the resulting game looks beautiful and calming.
Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Kingdom
Oceanhorn is a popular Zeldalike RPG (sure, it’s not as good as Zelda itself), and we have high hopes for this prequel, set 1,000 years before the original.
This time shift means there’s a lot more to the knights in armor front than before, but fantasy fans will love it. The visuals are beautiful, and there was a cool octopus in the Apple event trailer.
By land
This “post-apocalyptic road trip strategy game” (we bet you’re sick of that genre, right?) uses procedurally generated events, locations, and scenarios so it plays differently every time. We’re getting a bit of the ‘Banner Saga Meet Truckstop Americana’ vibe, but don’t ask us why.
Watch the trailer.
The Pathless
You play a masked hunter with a bow and an eagle, scouring a wooded island and trying to lift a curse in a game that seems to walk a practical line between slow-burn fear and fast-paced action sequences. It seems to share some of the mythic mysticism of Shadow of the Colossus and the bad guys look amazing.
Projection: first light
This awesome-looking platformer is clearly reminiscent of Limbo, which isn’t a bad thing; but whereas that game used shadows to evoke an atmosphere of horror, Projection feels more magical.
It is set in a world of shadow puppets. The central character, Greta, must explore a series of cultures in search of enlightenment, seeking help from the mythical heroes she knows.
Watch the trailer for more information.
Repair
Look, we know next to nothing about this game; the creators didn’t even specify a gender, as most did in their cryptic Twitter announcements. But the mere fact that it’s for two games, that they’re on a hot streak after producing the two Monument Valley games, gives us a good feeling. Whatever it is, we’ll try.
where the cards fall
An enigmatic coming-of-age story whose creators boast that there are no guns or murder, and that they don’t shy away from “uncomfortable formative experiences.” It’s about growing up and surviving the hardships of adolescence, and it seems like a really interesting and moving game.
We’re also fans of isometric visual design, which combines a muted color palette with weird fantasy elements: disembodied pairs of eyes, and houses made of cards that assemble and collapse before your very eyes.
winding worlds
Another game that remains almost a mystery after launch (it is “a colorful puzzle adventure about exploration, friendship and acceptance”), but this press image lets us see that the little ones in the house will also have their own content .
Apple Arcade will be available in fall 2019 in more than 150 countries from a new tab in the App Store on iOS, macOS, and tvOS. If you’re a developer and would like to be considered for Apple Arcade, visit developer.apple.com/apple-arcade.
Leave us your comments about which game interested you the most.
