Play wherever you want with no restrictions other than the duration of your battery. Have a genuinely good time, or a bad time if it’s a Survival Horror. Tackle a totally competitive experience by sliding a single finger across that same screen you keep in your pocket. The mobile games that 2023 has left us have been serious things, and they deserve special treatment. Enough to bring together the best and the brightest in the same place.
After reviewing the best video games of 2023, the hardware that the year has left us and also those films based on our favorite obsessions, at iGamesNews we have gathered the 21 proposals that best define the last 12 months on the most widespread gaming platform of all: mobile devices. And be careful, in some cases they have begun to look into the eyes of the traditional consoles.
Making this selection has not been easy.. Above all, taking into account the enormous number of releases coming to iOS and Android. So, to offer a fair review of 2023 that mobile games have given us, we have taken into account two very reasonable criteria:
- that the game was released this year. That is to say, the mobile versions of Resident Evil Village, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy, or Return to Monkey Island are sensational, but they debuted earlier on consoles and PCs.
- That these are games that run from the mobile and are installed. Which rules out those that run in the cloud through Xbox Game Pass or Amazon Luna, or are played remotely from another device.
On the other hand, and this is important, we have not made a distinction between free, paid games or games included in subscriptions like Apple Arcade or Netflix beyond the two previous parameters. So the only thing we have taken into account is your contribution to 2023 which has even been good for the game on mobile phones.
Without further ado, below you will find the best mobile games that the last 12 months have given us. All of them arranged alphabetically. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find your next favorite obsession here.
Ace Racer
Urban racing with arcade sensations and Made in Hollywood drifts. Ace Racer It’s a surprise in terms of controls and graphics, but it doesn’t take long to see why it’s free: the monetization system doesn’t take long to appear. We can pay attention to it or not, but in the end we are left with the sensations of driving without releasing the accelerator.
Farlight 84
Is there room for another Battle Royale for mobile phones in 2023? Farlight 84 He said a resounding yes. Its creators take the lessons learned from other successes and apply them to a game that, to begin with, relies heavily on competitive events. That, added to the Unreal Engine, is a winning formula.
Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis
Originally released on iOS and Android, and later brought to PCs, Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis intermixes all the different stories of the Final Fantasy VII meta-series under an episodic format in which, in addition, we will see untold stories of its protagonists and antagonists. A prelude and at the same time a perfect complement to the emblematic JRPG that conquered the world.
Football Manager 2024
The ultimate obsession for football fans and those in love with sports management came to mobile phones this year from a very special partner: Football Manager 2024 It was integrated into the catalog of exclusive games for Netflix subscribers. Quite an added temptation, if you are also a serial fan.
Hello Kitty: Island Adventure
To Caesar what is Caesar’s: Hello Kitty: Island Adventure It is one of the best mobile games that 2023 has given us, and its parallels with Animal Crossing only work in its favor. What’s more, while we make the little house of our dreams, there is also a kind of little adventure with the Sanrio characters.
Honkai: Star Rail
The creators of Ghenshin Impact have done it again: Honkai: Star Rail It has been crowned best mobile game in both the Apple Store, Google Play Store and even the Game Awards. Now, beyond that trident of successes, if you like anime-style RPGs, the best thing to do is give it a more than well-deserved game.
The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle Earth
The RPG, strategy and fantasy universe imagined by JRR Tolkien are intertwined in the return of the franchise of the Lord of the Rings at the hands of Electronic Arts. The best? Not only will you have to fight against Sauron’s hordes, but it has its own Player versus Player experience.
Lost in Play
A children’s story in graphic adventure format. Lost in Play It is the story of two brothers who try to return home through a fantasy world. That you see it on our list is no coincidence: the Snapbreak game has not stopped receiving well-deserved praise since its launch.
Mighty DOOM
A game of DOOM in Top-Down and with colorful and big-headed characters? Said like this it might seem like heresy, but Bethesda knew very well what it was doing when shaping and releasing Mighty DOOM. Because Doomguy will be smaller than usual, but he is still just as brutal when it comes to pulverizing demons.
Stage the Bonus: Pokémon Sleep
Pokémon Sleep was not the revolution expected from The Pokémon Company and Niantic, the creators of Pokémon Go, but our review of the mobile games of 2023 would be incomplete without its very original concept: capturing Pokémon while improving our sleeping habits. And yes, for the occasion a special device was even created to place under the pillow and everything.
Monster Hunter Now
The creators of Pokémon Go They did a double in 2023 and dared to take on Capcom’s cult saga. The result is as epic as expected: Monster Hunter Now combines geolocation technology with action and the creation of weapons and armor, making the captures of “not so pocket” monsters incredible.
Oxenfree II: Lost Signals
The biggest game from the first video game studio acquired by Netflix. Oxenfree II: Lost Signals arrived on PC and consoles, but all subscribers to the movie and series service can play it without having to pay a cent on mobile phones. A great gift, especially if you are a fan of Stranger Things.
Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!
Game Freak, the creators of Pokémon, sneak into Apple Arcade with one of their craziest and coolest sagas: Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! They take up the idea of 3DS by combining solitaire with horse racing. A genius that suits mobile phones wonderfully.
Resident Evil 4
The Resident Evil 4 remake is one of the best games of 2023. By far. And its conversion for iOS mobiles is also a demonstration of how and to what extent Apple phones want to measure themselves against consoles. In any case, a total essential.
Roto Force
Roto Force It is that indie genius that cannot be missing from any of our lists: simple, with an air of a new classic, and terribly addictive. What’s more, its free-to-try format (free, but with a payment for the full game) deserves a well-deserved game, either on mobile phones or from Steam.
Sonic Dream Team
Sonic is still on a roll without losing speed, and if this year he gave us joy on PC and consoles with Sonic Superstars, Apple Arcade players have had an additional surprise: Sonic Dream Team is a new platform adventure that retains the fun of the blue flash and his friends.
Storyteller
What if you had total control of the narrative of a video game? Not in terms of having to write what happens and who the protagonists are, but in a simpler and more interesting way: in Storyteller You choose the elements you want, add them to a page and wait to see the result.
Terra Nil
Very careful with Terra Nil: You start adding small changes here and there to a lifeless landscape and end up watching the screen turn off because you’re out of battery. If you have a Netflix subscription, you have no excuse not to install it on your mobile.
Tomb Raider Reloaded
The name lends itself to confusion, and its gameplay does not help to stand out from so many games with randomly generated levels, but Tomb Raider Reloaded It is actually a roguelike included in the Netflix subscription that serves as a tribute to the adventurer in all her stages.
Valiant Hearts: Coming Home
Ubisoft launched the sequel to Valiant Hearts. Not for consoles, nor for PCs, but for mobile phones. And if you are subscribed to Netflix you can play it completely and for free. A different look at war exploits in video games courtesy of Ubisoft.
Warcraft Rumble
Warcraft’s unexpected return to strategy follows in the footsteps of Clash Royale, but in the end Blizzard’s touch ends up giving it its own nuances. Warcraft Rumble is the perfect game to conquer Azeroth based on minifigures or return to the competitive formula under a format of short games that, it must be said, does not harm the franchise at all.
Bola Extra: Street Fighter: Duel
That you see Street Fighter: Duel as our traditional “Extra Ball” instead of interspersed in the list has its own explanation: although it arrived in the West this year, and courtesy of Crunchyroll, it had already been available in Asian territory for a long time. In any case, the first RPG based on Capcom’s fighting saga is pure fanservice and arrived just in time for Street Fighter 6.
In iGamesNews | The most anticipated video games of 2024: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Hellblade II, Star Wars Outlaws and more
Table of Contents
