Apple is set to begin a deep clean of the App Store in China, removing “thousands” of games that don’t have the proper government approvals, a report by Bloomberg claims.
Developers and publishers have reportedly been told that they will need to secure licenses to continue selling their games starting next month. While regulators have been promising such a crackdown since 2016, they have been slow to push through rules. As a result, unlicensed games were still being published in the interim.
Activision has pushed back the launch of Call of Duty: Mobile Season 7. The game upgrade was originally scheduled to launch for iPhone and iPad this week on June 4.
Call of Duty launched worldwide on mobile last October. It has proven immensely popular, racking up 100 million downloads in its first week on the market alone. This made it the best launch in mobile gaming history. The new season is set to include a variety of new maps, weapons, and other improvements.
However, due to the present political environment, triggered by the killing of unarmed Black man George Floyd by police, Activision says that this “not the time” to release Season 7.
Pokémon Go‘s Buddy feature gives you a, well, Poké buddy to go on adventures with, much like Pikachu was to Ash in the animated series.
Now, thanks to a new feature called Reality Blending, the experience is going to get even better — and a lot more glitch-free. If you haven’t seen it, check out the (weirdly tear-jerking) ad for the Buddy Adventure feature below, as well as details about how it’s been improved.
Touring the world ain’t exactly easy right now — which is why it’s good that Mario Kart Tour is there to fulfill your globe-hopping needs. The hit Nintendo kart racing game has already taken players to New York, Tokyo, Paris, London, and other exotic locales. Now it’s headed for the tropical Jungle in its latest tour.
Check out the trailer for the Jungle Tour below.
SteelSeries, the worldwide leader in gaming peripherals, announced its new Nimbus+ Wireless Gamepad Controller for Apple devices Tuesday.
The Nimbus+ improves on the original Nimbus controller by adding a plethora of new features. These include clickable joysticks, new Hall effect triggers, and an impressive 50-hour battery which should make it perfect for gaming during your weekly commute. Once those become a thing again.
What could be better than a mobile app that lets you play masses of games, like an old-school arcade squeezed onto your iPhone? A mobile app that lets you play masses of games and make your own new ones.
That’s what Swedish developer Martin Magni created with Fancade, a new iOS app launching Thursday. It offers a huge collection of mini-games, all created using the app itself, along with a drag-and-drop game-maker that lets you create your own.
Mr. Pumpkin 2: Walls of Kowloon, a surreal, but intriguing, new game created by the makers of the popular Isoland game series (and the original Mr. Pumpkin Adventure, natch!), has landed in the App Store.
A hand-drawn point-and-click adventure that allows you to explore Hong Kong’s endlessly fascinating Kowloon Walled City, it’s the perfect game to play in lockdown. You know, to remind you that actually being able to walk around cities is a thing most of us used to do!
Check out the trailer below.
There aren’t too many businesses that are thriving right now, but mobile games in the App Store certainly appear to be one of the outliers. Provided that you’re among the top titles, that is!
With many people stuck at home due to COVID-19 lockdown, a Tuesday report from GoldenCasinoNews claims that the top five games in the U.S. App Store hit $9.7 million in daily revenue in April. The leader of the pack right now is the ultra-popular Roblox Mobile, which is raking in approximately $2.7 million daily.
You really did need to be in a rush to play Pokémon Rumble Rush because, having only debuted in 2019, it’s blasting off again. Destination: The great gaming scrap heap in the sky.
An in-game notice for the Pokémon-battling title reveals that support for its game service will end on July 22. That will be exactly one year after it launched on Android and iOS.
Microsoft and Turn 10 Studios’ Forza Street racing game is coming to iOS on May 5. The free-to-play street racing game originally debuted for Windows 10 as Miami Street back in May 2018. It was then officially brought under the acclaimed Forza franchise banner last year, when it was promised for a future mobile release.
Forza Street features a diverse range of real-world cars and a cool night setting. Its approach to racing certainly sounds a little… different, though.
Check out the trailer below.
Trapped in an oppressive single location, allowing no-one to get within breathing distance of you, while the apocalypse teeters ever closer on the horizon… Life in coronavirus lockdown? Maybe. But it’s also an apt description of Doom and Doom II, the classic first-person-shooters which just got a nifty update on iOS.
With a variety of improvements and more than 30 new levels to enjoy, there’s never been a better (or more appropriate) time to check out or revisit this grisly duo of classic 1990s blasters.
At five years old, Square Enix’s Lara Croft Go is a comparative oldie, but a goodie. The tomb-raiding puzzle game is also now free to download — making it perfect for a time when many of us are stuck in the proverbial (definitely not literal) tombs that are our apartments and houses.
What better time to play a globe-trotting, death-dodging, brain-tickling action game?
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, probably the most beloved entry in the action-adventure gothic Castlevania franchise, got a surprise release on mobile Tuesday.
Originally released on PlayStation in 1997, Symphony of the Night changed the series’ direction. It did this by borrowing not from the existing Castlevania formula, but by augmenting it with RPG elements from games like Zelda II and Metroid. It’s pretty darn great.
Mario Kart Tour‘s multiplayer mode is finally rolling out to everyone — and you don’t need to pay up to play it.
The popular Nintendo kart-racing game debuted its first multiplayer beta test in late 2019. However, only players who subscribed to the game’s $4.99 a month Gold Pass could play it. A public beta process took place in January.
Crossy Road Castle, the long-awaited follow-up to Hipster Whale’s 2014 game Crossy Road, landed on Apple Arcade on Thursday.
The game takes the same updated Frogger concept that made the original such a hit, but swaps out the roads and cars for a procedurally generated endless castle tower the player must climb. Check out the trailer below:
Path to Mnemosyne, an esoteric puzzle game featuring gorgeous hand-drawn grayscale art, is coming to the App Store. And it’s a doozy.
Having previously made waves on Steam in late 2018, in addition to launches on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, the critically acclaimed game’s forthcoming arrival on iOS will open it up to a whole new audience. If David Lynch made an iOS game it would probably look a lot like this.
Approaching a year-and-a-half after it marched onto iPhone, I’m still amazed that Sid Meier’s epic Civilization VI has somehow been squeezed onto a device that fits in your pocket.
Now there’s a new reason to be amazed, too. That’s because the turn-based 4X game (that’s “eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate” for all you newbies) has been discounted to its cheapest price yet. Instead of the $59.99 regular price, it’s currently just $4.99.
How can you go wrong?
Two years after it debuted in the iOS App Store, Alto’s Odyssey has finally arrived on Mac.
The long-awaited follow up to 2015’s brilliant Alto’s Adventure endless snowboarding game transposes the action to a desert sandboarding setting. The resulting game is a luscious graphical stunner that will keep you playing for hours!
It’s the Olympic Games this summer — and Sonic the Hedgehog and friends are ready to help mark the occasion.
Coming to iOS May 7, the game will pit Sonic against the villainous Dr. Robotnik/Eggman in a battle for, err, sporting excellence in Tokyo. It sounds kind of crazy, but looks like it could be a fair amount of fun. Check out the trailer below.
Mario Kart Tour is certainly living up to its name. Having taken players to Paris, London, New York and Tokyo, alongside seasonal courses based on Halloween, winter and Valentine’s Day, the hit Nintendo racer now has a new destination: Vancouver.
Its new Vancouver Tour is the first time Mario Kart Tour has headed to Canada. And it’s throwing in new character costumes Aurora Rosalina and the hilarious Hiker Wario for the ride. Check out the trailer below.
Nintendo’s mobile games have pulled in more than $1 billion in revenue from global player spending, new data published by mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower suggests.
Nintendo currently has six mobile games, which have received a total of 452 million downloads worldwide. The biggest earner, accounting for 61% of mobile revenue, is the RPG game Fire Emblem Heroes.
This week we type on our Apple Watches, scrapbook everything into Notebooks, flex our brains with MoneyBall and more.
TikTok was the most popular iOS app worldwide in Q4 2019, as measured by total number of downloads. In both the App Store and Google Play, TikTok downloads hit an all-time high of almost 220 million installs. On iOS alone, it racked up 42 million.
In the United States, TikTok ranked no. 2 after the newly launched Disney+.
No game dominated the summer of 2016 quite like the augmented reality blockbuster Pokémon Go. Raking in massive bucks and plenty of virtual column inches that summer, the game became a massive smash hit — before fading from view.
At least, that’s the perspective of people who wonder if anyone still plays Pokémon GO. In fact, not only do people still play it; the game just had its best year to date. What’s the secret to its longevity? And why is that a good thing for gamers?
As a kid, Viktor Domonyi loved early computer role-playing games like Wizardry and Eye of the Beholder. Now that he’s grown, the 41-year-old Hungarian web developer-by-day, games developer-by-night wants to bring them back. And he’s willing to sacrifice massive quantities of free time to make his dream a reality.
Welcome to the world of Moonshades: a new (yet convincingly old school) RPG that’s just landed in the App Store. For fantasy fans who wish their 2020 was a bit more 1990 in style, this is the dungeon-crawler for you.