Less than a decade ago, the mere concept of mobile gaming caused techies and gamers alike to scoff. But, nowadays, mobile gaming is alive, well, and massive. And, thanks to smartphones becoming super-powerful, we actually get pretty decent shooters, adventures, platformers, and strategies — not just connect-3 games.
So, you have a shiny new iPhone 14, a huge new Galaxy Z Fold 4, or a beast of an Asus ROG Phone. What do you play on it?
Here are the best mobile games to install right now:
A game that takes on the ambitious goal of giving you an extraction shooter experience like Escape From Tarkov on mobile and tablet. That includes super-big maps, a very elaborate health system, incredibly deep weapon customization, hard gameplay, punishing raids, and adrenaline-pumping engagements. It's free to play and it's definitely not for everyone — this is a far cry from your "pop in pop out" mobile gameplay.
This is the mobile spinoff of Call of Duty's royale mode — Warzone. We aren't sure why it had to be a separate app, but there it is — it comes with graphical updates and slightly different gameplay and feel from the original CoD: Mobile. And, of course, it is incredibly popular, since it has a huge community on PC and console — many of those players love to take their Warzone experience on the go, even if it's not exactly the same. But the good news is that it supports Bluetooth controllers, including your favorite Xbox or DualShock controller!
This one needs no introduction — Call of Duty is such a massive franchise that, once the Mobile spinoff dropped, it was instantly downloaded by millions of people. We do feel like its controls need a bit of a tune-up, as they don’t feel as smooth and accurate as Apex. But it does still support your console controller out of the box.
Escape From Tarkov for mobile, but 3rd person — the game is pretty shameless in flaunting its inspirations, from the Factory map down to seasonal wipes. Of course, since it’s a mobile game, it’s a bit simplified — at the very least, you have a working map that shows you where your extractions are.
However, don’t be quick to dismiss it. The game does involve a ton of the complex systems that Tarkov challenges hardcore players with — from bleeding and fractures, different vendors and a player-driven black market, to scavenging for rare supplies and building your hideout up from nothing.
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So, you should brace for a pretty lengthy introduction tutorial period over the span of a few level playthroughs before you can hope to actually join PvP.
Lost Light doesn’t support controllers on mobile, but it’s available for PC and Nvidia Now, where you can use alternative controls.
Another Tarkov-inspired 3rd person shooter game. This one, however, simplifies gaming mechanics much much more. So, if you want a bit of that Tarkov buzz with a distinct “mobile game” feel and no plethora of punishing mechanics — this one is more up your alley.
Counter-Strike is one of these timeless games that simply refuses to fade away. As such, it also has a ton of mobile clones made, so you can scratch that CS:GO itch… when on the go.
We find Critical Ops to be among the most successful of those. Beware — it has a big community of experienced players and they won’t take it easy on you, not even from the first match in.
Critical Ops does not support controllers so everyone is on an equal playing field.
Survivors get to enjoy the adrenaline-pumping PvP that we’ve known over the past 20 years.
The intricacies of PUBG’s developments are an ever-tangling drama, but we’ll save you the long story — PUBG New State is newer than the original PUBG Mobile. It’s developed by a studio of veteran PUBG developers that broke off to make their own mobile game (and the company is called PUBG Corporation).
By all means, New State came out kicking and punching, with improved graphics and smoother controls. At their core, both are the same games, but if you are feeling like scratching that PUBG itch with a phone, New State should be the one to download.
Alien: Isolation is an absolutely incredible game that made a big splash when it was released on PC and consoles. It is absolutely unbelievable that the entire game is now available on mobile devices as well. This is no lousy simplified remake or poorly-made licensed game. This is the real thing, published by developer Feral Interactive themselves!
The graphics, the darkness, the terror, and the absolute horror are back. Granted, maybe it's not so immersive on a tiny screen, but at least it supports gamepads so you don't need to wrestle with the touch controls while trying to avoid the xenomorph.
A top-down, team based, royale-type shooter game with stealth elements. Bullet Echo can be tactical, challenging, and very rewarding — your vision is limited to a cone in front of you, but you can “hear” opponent footsteps (visual indicators show the exact position). It’s a matter of taking your time, waiting your opponents out, and dishing out punishment to anyone who doesn’t respect stealth mechanics.
A massively popular top-down hero shooter game. Rounds are played in 3 vs 3 formats where each team needs to stay around the center of the map to achieve the objective. This results in quick, action-packed rounds, perfectly formatted for the mobile gaming use case.
A top-down isometric shooter that offers quick, chaotic, action-packed rounds of team vs team violence. It’s pretty easy to get into, especially since your character auto-fires as you aim, but don’t be quick to knock it. It feels smooth, fast, and challenging enough as it is — the gameplay loop requires you to manage your ammo, dodge charges, and your positioning, else you become swarmed by the enemy team.
Vampire Survivors is an indie roguelike bullet hell survovor shoot-em-up — and yeah, that maship of genres is a mouthful. In any case, it was a huge hit when it dropped in early access some time in 2021 and the developer was kind enough to make it available for mobile as well! Its pixel art graphics are not too demanding, so you can enjoy it on a wide variety of mobile devices — get your fix of frantic action while on the go!
Best MOBA and Strategy games for iPhone and Android
League of Legends has been the king of the MOBA scene on PC (note: DOTA 2 is awesome), so — obviously — its mobile port became instantly popular. It’s basically the go-to MOBA, as it has been under development for years and it’s filled with fleshed-out and balanced characters and items.
Vainglory was the first high-quality MOBA to be developed specifically for mobile. It was out before LoL Mobile, it was out before the current plethora of clones and spinoffs. Since the developers knew they need it to work for touch, Vainglory incorporated swiping and pinching mechanics for a unique control. It’s still a guilty pleasure of ours today, though recent patches for Android have users disgruntled. In any case, if it runs fine for you, you should enjoy it!
Overdox is a mix between a battle royale and a MOBA with RPG-style elements. Plus, it’s melee weapon only. So, you need to be the last man standing and you get to dispatch your foes by swinging large blades, hammers, flails, and whatever else. With a nice coat of futuristic anime-like aesthetic on top, too.
A top-down, action squad manager type game. It’s a single-player, offline game with tons and tons of missions, plus a random mission generator when you are done with everything else.
This game is no joke. It’s a full-fledged strategy that’s available for PC, consoles, and mobile. As such, don’t expect to be treated with any soft “mobile gamer” gloves — matches here can easily run for 1+ hours.
It’s a Norse mythology styled game of building a village and expanding your own army to take down the enemy. It has strong Age of Empires / Empire Earth vibes, so if those games were your jam, this one should be right up your alley. It’s possible to play vs computer opponents (which are HARD) or in multiplayer.
We should note, when you reach a certain level in this game, it’s heavily pay-to-win. This is unfortunate, because it is otherwise an excellent homage to the C&C franchize. The hex field that they came up with to make quick matches for mobile possible looks simplistic and boring at first, but can actually lead to very quick and chaotic battles of wits and game knowledge.
All the units in the game harkon back to some era of C&C and they are a true delight for fans. This game should be experienced, even if you drop it at the point when it begins asking for too much to upgrade your units.
Much like its PC and console counterparts, X-COM is an unforgiving, brutal strategy game where you are constantly at the edge of losing your campaign progress. It’s a beloved franchize that any hardcore strategy fan has played. So, this entry is here to remind you that both X-COM 1 and X-COM 2 are available for mobile devices, so you can live through the heartbreak of losing your favorite soldier even when waiting in front of the doctor’s office.
Homeworld is an epic grand strategy game that demands you invest hours, days, and weeks into it. If you wish to truly immerse yourself into building a fleet, an alliance, and waging war on other (player) factions — this MMO strategy will scratch that itch. Just be sure to bring a powerbank along.
Frostpunk is a really cool indie survivor / strategy game that quickly gained a cult following when it launched. You need to manage the resources of a small colony of people, surviving after an icy apocalypse. What makes the game unique is that your decisions shape the politics and culture of your colony. For example — do you condone child labor or do you abolish it? One will lead to more working hands for upkeep, the other will lead to better morale.
It's a replayable game in the sense of a "rogue-like" style — you probably won't win most of your runs, but no two attempts will play out the same.
A beautiful, heartwarming, and then heartbreaking, story-driven adventure game. The gameplay concept is simple — you control two brothers on their adventure to save their dad, using the twin-stick format. It’s all about using their unique skills and builds to bypass various puzzles and challenges. And, of course, soaking in the fantasy world they live in.
This is a unique, social adventure type game where there aren’t really any stakes or battles. It’s about going on a journey and experiencing this beautiful, peaceful fantasy world with other players online. It’s one of very few “peaceful games” that actually kind of reached the mainstream thanks to a couple of streamers. All we can say is it’s fantastic to just plug in a pair of headphones and chill out with this one.
This is a puzzle game with surreal art that demands you manipulate the paradoxical architecture around you in order to progress. It is yet another beautiful-looking, peaceful experience that everyone who has played — loves.
This is a puzzle adventure game that utilizes a time-trave gimmick to warp between a stylized 70s world and an unknown future timeline when humanity is extinct. It is an atmospheric, peaceful, and a bit depressing adventure game that we enjoyed for its artstyle, story delivery, and relaxed gameplay.
An absolute classic from the late 80s. It may be a bit frisky for your tastes, as the game involves trying to get our protagonist — the lovable loser Larry Laffer — to find... hmmm, companionship.
Typical to its 90s adventure style, the riddles are ridiculous, entertaining, and infuriating, and the humor is sprinkled throughout rather heavy-handedly. Thankfully, you can play through the first act of the game for free and decide whether you want to pay for the whole thing then.
The king of action RPGs — Diablo — arrived on mobile with a splash… and tons of controversy. Its monetization model is a bit of a bottomless pit that we wouldn’t venture near, but its gameplay and item grind have been universally praised (besides for a tiny little footstep guide, which robs you of the exploration factor when going on a quest).
Story-wise it’s a bit of nostalgia bait, giving you way too many details and backstory about characters that should have been left alone, we feel. But many fans enjoy it and we wouldn’t fault you if you did too.
At first look, this game looks like a Diablo clone, but it’s much more than that. It’s a different spin on the dungeon crawler ARPG genre that lets you collect heroes and hot-swap between them on the go. Skills are actually talent trees, so there’s just a bit of Path of Exile sprinkled in there. Graphics and animations are smooth and pretty. It’s another free-to-play game, but players seem to be enjoying the monetization model here. Definitely worth a spin.
This is a cool top-down, hack and slash RPG with retro graphics. It was made by one person and their love for the product does show through. It’s a single player experience that you can enjoy offline, too!
A true classic, ported for mobile. At the surface, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is a side-scrolling slasher. But what a “Metroidvania” game is known for is progression, tons of replayability, and lots of nooks and crannies to explore.
Be warned that the on-screen controls just don’t translate very well. Thankfully, it supports controllers, so you can hook one up to enjoy this classic title.
There are a ton of jRPG games out for mobile nowadays, but instead of diving down that rabbit hole, we'd rather just recommend the classic. Chrono Trigger was a smash hit when it originally released... oh some years ago (let's not talk about our age, shall we?). It was probably one of the most influential games that introduced the jRPG style to western markets and it still holds a special place in many gamers' hearts. Whether you wish to revisit or explore it for the first time — you can now do so from your phone (back in the day, you needed to beg for an SNES console)!
Best fighting and beat em up games for iPhone and Android
Shadow Fight is a long-running franchize of mobile round fighters. The latest entry focuses on multiplayer exclusively. There are tons of weapons to equip to find your playstile. The gameplay is easy to get in to, hard to master. Pay-to-win can be a factor here, which is always unfortunate in fighting games, but we can’t deny that fun can be had in this game.
A well-known and respected fighting franchise — it’s in the same universe (or parallel to) as the Street Fighter series. This one has been reworked to the new 2.5D style of the latest Street Fighter games, too.
Another franchise that has been revamped and released for mobile. Bonus points: the latest updates of Allstar also have Tekken 7 characters! And yeah, it’s not an easy game — you do need some time in the lab if you hope to win some rounds.
The closest thing we could find to For Honor for mobile. It’s a dueling game, where you can pick from a variety of medieval weapons (and shields). When in combat, you need to watch your stance and maneuver to match whichever side the opponent is attacking from. Parries and counters are also a thing. Unfortunately, so is buying your way to better damage and health.
An incredibly popular rogue-lite that was first developed for PC and consoles. Dead Cells is now available for mobile and brings its explosive, colorful gameplay in full force. If you enjoy grinding through endless dungeons and fighting tons of weird creatures — it’s a good one! Oh, it's also an offline game.
A very cool and easy to get into side-scrolling beat em up game. Collect multiple characters and go through the streets… beating people. Feels like Double Dragon if it was made from scratch for mobile. It’s a single player offline experience.
We already have Door Kickers listed above — but yes, it’s an offline game. Endless missions of tactical fun, even if you don’t have Internet right now.
Another ARPG to scratch that loot-grinding itch. Eternium was not made offline entirely at the forefront, but it can be played without a connection, provided you’ve given the game enough time to download its files. So, if you want to invest time in an RPG which will allow you to play when you are inbetweet Internet points — this one is a good one.
Quick and simple enjoyment — just slide down slopes, jump, and enjoy the dreamlike backdrops. Alto’s games are very well-liked for a chill, almost meditative-like experience.
From the developer of Plague Inc., this strategy focuses on the meta controls over politics and army-building. It’s all about resource management and tactical forethought — the slow horse wins the race here. Well, it’s a pretty hard game, so it may take you some time to actually get somewhere. But hey, it’s completely offline.
Outlined above — it’s a cartoon-style, slightly simplified, Double Dragon-like game. A side-scrolling beat-em-up with lots of different heroes to collect. And it works entirely offline.
Side-scrolling slasher with plenty of dungeons to explore. Grimvalor was listed above for good reason — it feels pretty great to play. And you can do it offline, too!
Now, if you are looking for an actual single player game with lots of playtime on it — the classic KOTOR. Never played it? Do so! The combat system does feel pretty aged… and it’s kind of a push to get into. However, it’s a very deep RPG game with multiple choices and paths, which kind of set the standard for what an RPG should look like back in the day.
Since we are throwing in old game ports — any of the GTA games from Rockstar is a great buy for your mobile. But GTA III is a good starting point if you haven’t experienced any of them. Plus, it seems to have the smoothest controller support across different brands, as per all the comments we could see.
The rich jRPG world of Chrono Trigger will provide hours upon hours of time-burning entertainment. It's an entirely single player game and since it's a one-time purchase, the developer will not demand that you are online for any ads or server checks.
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Preslav, a member of the PhoneArena team since 2014, is a mobile technology enthusiast with a penchant for integrating tech into his hobbies and work. Whether it's writing articles on an iPad Pro, recording band rehearsals with multiple phones, or exploring the potential of mobile gaming through services like GeForce Now and Steam Link, Preslav's approach is hands-on and innovative. His balanced perspective allows him to appreciate both Android and iOS ecosystems, focusing on performance, camera quality, and user experience over brand loyalty.
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