The Best iPhone Games for 2021

Among Us launched in 2018, but it inexplicably became super-popular in 2020.

In this cooperative, multiplayer game, you work together to suss out the liar in the group, as you survive in space.

We're stuck at home right now, so this is the perfect game for keeping your social skills sharp (and your paranoia high).

This real-time strategy game puts you in control of a tribe as you expand its territory, fight enemies, and ultimately build an empire. The Battle of Polytopia lets you play solo, against a friend, or with strangers via online multiplayer.

Beyond a Steel Sky (only on Apple Arcade) is the long-awaited follow-up to Revolution Software’s 1994 adventure game Beneath a Steel Sky.

This cyberpunk title honors the source material, but still recognizes the ways in which the point-and-click genre has evolved over the past quarter century.

Praised for its simple gameplay and minimalist art design, Blek is a puzzle game that tasks you with creating patterns using touch-screen gestures to complete each level.

Released in 2013, the game proved to be a simple, popular addition to the iPhone's game library.

If you like Super Smash Bros, but don’t have a Nintendo system, Brawlhalla is the next best thing.

This free-to-play fighter puts tiny colorful characters, armed with wacky weapons, in grand brawls to knock each other off the stage.

The Call of Duty franchise's AAA polish holds up nicely in this mobile conversion.

Now you can enjoy Activision’s famous first-person shooter for free on the go.

Even the battle royale mode made the cut.

Clash Royale combines collectible cards, tower defense, and online multiplayer to create a truly unique gaming experience.

Since its worldwide release in 2016, Clash Royale has been nominated for many different awards and is now a popular international eSport.

Crashlands debuted in 2016 as an adventure-crafting RPG adventure with a wild plot.

Stranded on an uncivilized planet, you must fight monsters, mine resources, and fulfill quests while trying to stay alive.

The game has cross-platform support, so you have no reason stop playing.

Like a chicken forever crossing the road, we will never stop recommending Crossy Road.

Its addictive, arcade gameplay and adorable voxel art style make it an indispensable mobile game.

This roguelike, dungeon-crawling game adds an element of beat-matching to create a fun, yet brutal, playing experience.

You can only move or attack by matching the soundtrack's rhythm, gaining multipliers for successful matches.

The goal is to not only beat each level, but also gain better items and become more effective in each new level.

This brutal, roguelike game makes its way to iOS after a successful launch on home consoles and PC.

It puts you in control of a small creature that can take control of dead bodies.

Your goal is to escape from prison by gaining power ups and fighting enemies through randomized levels.

When you die, you die for good, but you can use that experience to better prepare for the next run.

Death Road to Canada is a randomly generated RPG that tasks you with surviving a zombie apocalypse.

Explore cities, recruit characters, make decisions, and try to stay alive on your pixelated adventure.

If you like the idea of golfing in a desert, you’ll love the 2014 arthouse game Desert Golfing.

Courses are randomized, and the ball's movement is unreliable because everything takes place on sand.

The game has been praised for its simplicity, great visuals, and difficult levels.

A primarily text-based adventure game, Device 6 takes players through interactive puzzles and story elements in order to help the main character escape an island.

The game has been praised for its unique style of storytelling, strong prose, and sound effects.

For a game that truly takes advantage of your phone’s vertical screen, try Downwell.

As you endlessly plummet down randomized, monochrome dungeons, plummet in style by hopping on enemies and blasting them with your gun boots as long as you can.

In The Escapists, you must find a way to bust out of prison.

You can roam through the prison, collect or craft items, take assignments from fellow inmates, and level up your character.

When you escape, it's on to the next prison.

Don't get caught, otherwise all the work you have done will be wiped out.

Enter the Gungeon tasked with you traveling as far as possible into the titular lair of firearms.

Exit the Gungeon challenges you to escape.

No matter the direction you go, you’ll blast your way through tons of projectile peons.

Touch controls actually reduce the difficulty compared to using a controller.

Fallout Shelter puts you in charge of running a vault—a colony of survivors buried beneath the Earth, safe from radiation.

In practice, it's pretty similar to the countless other mobile resource-management games.

However, clever and non-exploitative uses of in-app purchases, combined with the unmistakable feel of the Fallout franchise, help Fallout Shelter appeal to casual and hardcore players alike.

In Florence, players follow the story of Florence Yeoh through 20 chapters of interactive stories filled with minigames.

The 2018 game takes only about 30 minutes to get through, but has been highly praised for its storytelling, character building, and art direction.

After its release in 2017, Fortnite has taken the gaming community by storm with its accessible gameplay, free online connectivity, and quick setup.

The game has since expanded to mobile, allowing players to enjoy the same gameplay they would have if they were on a home console.

This narrative-based puzzle game tasks you with rearranging the panels of a noir-style comic book in order to ensure the player-characters escape their would-be captors.

Released in 2014, Framed earned high praise for its strong visuals, subtle storytelling elements, and great music.

This is one of the weirdest games you'll play on your iPhone. Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy puts you in control of a character who has his legs stuck in a cauldron and uses a hammer as his only means of movement.

You must use the hammer to scale a mountain, but there are no save points, so you can fall backward at any time, undoing all the progress made up to that point.

The game also contains voiceover commentary from designer Bennett Foddy, who discusses philosophical topics, often based on the player's in-game actions.

Gorogoa was in development for six years, but the final product, hand-drawn by developer Jason Roberts, is a visual masterpiece.

There is no text in the game, leaving players to complete puzzles and explore themes of spirituality and religion on their own.

Grindstone stood out as a shining jewel during Apple Arcade’s launch because it put a novel spin on a standard puzzle game trope.

Instead of just matching jewels to clear them, you match enemies for your beefy barbarian to smash into paste.

In 2014, the World of Warcraft franchise got a little bigger when it expanded into the realm of mobile gaming with Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Hearthstone is a free-to-play, turn-based, collectible card game that borrows from the existing World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.

Its popularity has led to the release of numerous expansion packs and even an esports tournament.

This 2015 release is billed as an interactive movie in which you're given pieces of a police interview and are asked to piece together the truth. Her Story uses live-action performances on a simulated desktop, and earned praise for the narrative, character performance, and gameplay.

Taking a page from the popular Where's Waldo book series, Hidden Folks gives you interactive, animated scenes, in which you must find hidden elements.

Tapping the hand-drawn art lets you interact with it as you search for characters, objects, and animals.

Translating existing game franchises to iOS has always been tricky.

Not all games can make the leap from a console with controllers and buttons to nothing but a single touch screen.

However, Hitman Go skillfully captures the essence of everyone's favorite bald assassin, Agent 47, in a more mobile-friendly form.

You'll be shocked how satisfying this slick series of strategy board games feels as figures move across flat surfaces to take out their targets.

Playdead's Inside is a puzzle-platformer set in a dark dystopic world of government experimentation and zombie-like creatures.

Noted for its monochromatic, 2.5D graphics, Inside is a spiritual successor to Playdead's Limbo.

If you like the Lara Croft franchise, you'll love what they did with this mobile game.

Taking cues from Hitman Go, Lara Croft Go went a step further and added elevations to the game board.

It feels just like a true Lara Croft game, with her having to climb up mountain cliffs and maneuver around chasms.

Back in 2010, Playdead released the black-and-white puzzle platformer Limbo, which saw you take control of a boy searching for his sister in a dark and dystopic world.

The game stood out from the pack due to its challenging puzzles and gruesome depiction of the player-character's demise, helping to elevate the conversation of video games as art.

The action puzzler Linn: Path of Orchards requires you to navigate through rotating platforms using the character's flying and jumping abilities.

The game's appealing color schemes make it a pleasant gaming experience.

Among Us launched in 2018, but it inexplicably became super-popular in 2020.

In this cooperative, multiplayer game, you work together to suss out the liar in the group, as you survive in space.

We're stuck at home right now, so this is the perfect game for keeping your social skills sharp (and your paranoia high).

This real-time strategy game puts you in control of a tribe as you expand its territory, fight enemies, and ultimately build an empire. The Battle of Polytopia lets you play solo, against a friend, or with strangers via online multiplayer.

Beyond a Steel Sky (only on Apple Arcade) is the long-awaited follow-up to Revolution Software’s 1994 adventure game Beneath a Steel Sky.

This cyberpunk title honors the source material, but still recognizes the ways in which the point-and-click genre has evolved over the past quarter century.

Praised for its simple gameplay and minimalist art design, Blek is a puzzle game that tasks you with creating patterns using touch-screen gestures to complete each level.

Released in 2013, the game proved to be a simple, popular addition to the iPhone's game library.

If you like Super Smash Bros, but don’t have a Nintendo system, Brawlhalla is the next best thing.

This free-to-play fighter puts tiny colorful characters, armed with wacky weapons, in grand brawls to knock each other off the stage.

The Call of Duty franchise's AAA polish holds up nicely in this mobile conversion.

Now you can enjoy Activision’s famous first-person shooter for free on the go.

Even the battle royale mode made the cut.

Clash Royale combines collectible cards, tower defense, and online multiplayer to create a truly unique gaming experience.

Since its worldwide release in 2016, Clash Royale has been nominated for many different awards and is now a popular international eSport.

Crashlands debuted in 2016 as an adventure-crafting RPG adventure with a wild plot.

Stranded on an uncivilized planet, you must fight monsters, mine resources, and fulfill quests while trying to stay alive.

The game has cross-platform support, so you have no reason stop playing.

Like a chicken forever crossing the road, we will never stop recommending Crossy Road.

Its addictive, arcade gameplay and adorable voxel art style make it an indispensable mobile game.

This roguelike, dungeon-crawling game adds an element of beat-matching to create a fun, yet brutal, playing experience.

You can only move or attack by matching the soundtrack's rhythm, gaining multipliers for successful matches.

The goal is to not only beat each level, but also gain better items and become more effective in each new level.

This brutal, roguelike game makes its way to iOS after a successful launch on home consoles and PC.

It puts you in control of a small creature that can take control of dead bodies.

Your goal is to escape from prison by gaining power ups and fighting enemies through randomized levels.

When you die, you die for good, but you can use that experience to better prepare for the next run.

Death Road to Canada is a randomly generated RPG that tasks you with surviving a zombie apocalypse.

Explore cities, recruit characters, make decisions, and try to stay alive on your pixelated adventure.

If you like the idea of golfing in a desert, you’ll love the 2014 arthouse game Desert Golfing.

Courses are randomized, and the ball's movement is unreliable because everything takes place on sand.

The game has been praised for its simplicity, great visuals, and difficult levels.

A primarily text-based adventure game, Device 6 takes players through interactive puzzles and story elements in order to help the main character escape an island.

The game has been praised for its unique style of storytelling, strong prose, and sound effects.

For a game that truly takes advantage of your phone’s vertical screen, try Downwell.

As you endlessly plummet down randomized, monochrome dungeons, plummet in style by hopping on enemies and blasting them with your gun boots as long as you can.

In The Escapists, you must find a way to bust out of prison.

You can roam through the prison, collect or craft items, take assignments from fellow inmates, and level up your character.

When you escape, it's on to the next prison.

Don't get caught, otherwise all the work you have done will be wiped out.

Enter the Gungeon tasked with you traveling as far as possible into the titular lair of firearms.

Exit the Gungeon challenges you to escape.

No matter the direction you go, you’ll blast your way through tons of projectile peons.

Touch controls actually reduce the difficulty compared to using a controller.

Fallout Shelter puts you in charge of running a vault—a colony of survivors buried beneath the Earth, safe from radiation.

In practice, it's pretty similar to the countless other mobile resource-management games.

However, clever and non-exploitative uses of in-app purchases, combined with the unmistakable feel of the Fallout franchise, help Fallout Shelter appeal to casual and hardcore players alike.

In Florence, players follow the story of Florence Yeoh through 20 chapters of interactive stories filled with minigames.

The 2018 game takes only about 30 minutes to get through, but has been highly praised for its storytelling, character building, and art direction.

After its release in 2017, Fortnite has taken the gaming community by storm with its accessible gameplay, free online connectivity, and quick setup.

The game has since expanded to mobile, allowing players to enjoy the same gameplay they would have if they were on a home console.

This narrative-based puzzle game tasks you with rearranging the panels of a noir-style comic book in order to ensure the player-characters escape their would-be captors.

Released in 2014, Framed earned high praise for its strong visuals, subtle storytelling elements, and great music.

This is one of the weirdest games you'll play on your iPhone. Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy puts you in control of a character who has his legs stuck in a cauldron and uses a hammer as his only means of movement.

You must use the hammer to scale a mountain, but there are no save points, so you can fall backward at any time, undoing all the progress made up to that point.

The game also contains voiceover commentary from designer Bennett Foddy, who discusses philosophical topics, often based on the player's in-game actions.

Gorogoa was in development for six years, but the final product, hand-drawn by developer Jason Roberts, is a visual masterpiece.

There is no text in the game, leaving players to complete puzzles and explore themes of spirituality and religion on their own.

Grindstone stood out as a shining jewel during Apple Arcade’s launch because it put a novel spin on a standard puzzle game trope.

Instead of just matching jewels to clear them, you match enemies for your beefy barbarian to smash into paste.

In 2014, the World of Warcraft franchise got a little bigger when it expanded into the realm of mobile gaming with Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Hearthstone is a free-to-play, turn-based, collectible card game that borrows from the existing World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.

Its popularity has led to the release of numerous expansion packs and even an esports tournament.

This 2015 release is billed as an interactive movie in which you're given pieces of a police interview and are asked to piece together the truth. Her Story uses live-action performances on a simulated desktop, and earned praise for the narrative, character performance, and gameplay.

Taking a page from the popular Where's Waldo book series, Hidden Folks gives you interactive, animated scenes, in which you must find hidden elements.

Tapping the hand-drawn art lets you interact with it as you search for characters, objects, and animals.

Translating existing game franchises to iOS has always been tricky.

Not all games can make the leap from a console with controllers and buttons to nothing but a single touch screen.

However, Hitman Go skillfully captures the essence of everyone's favorite bald assassin, Agent 47, in a more mobile-friendly form.

You'll be shocked how satisfying this slick series of strategy board games feels as figures move across flat surfaces to take out their targets.

Playdead's Inside is a puzzle-platformer set in a dark dystopic world of government experimentation and zombie-like creatures.

Noted for its monochromatic, 2.5D graphics, Inside is a spiritual successor to Playdead's Limbo.

If you like the Lara Croft franchise, you'll love what they did with this mobile game.

Taking cues from Hitman Go, Lara Croft Go went a step further and added elevations to the game board.

It feels just like a true Lara Croft game, with her having to climb up mountain cliffs and maneuver around chasms.

Back in 2010, Playdead released the black-and-white puzzle platformer Limbo, which saw you take control of a boy searching for his sister in a dark and dystopic world.

The game stood out from the pack due to its challenging puzzles and gruesome depiction of the player-character's demise, helping to elevate the conversation of video games as art.

The action puzzler Linn: Path of Orchards requires you to navigate through rotating platforms using the character's flying and jumping abilities.

The game's appealing color schemes make it a pleasant gaming experience.