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Genshin Impact is a phenomenal game. I gave it a glowing review, wrote extensive early guides on it, and it snagged this site's game of the year award for 2020. Since I first started playing a year ago, I don't think I've gone a single day without logging in and enjoying myself, and I've been able to do so without paying any money whatsoever.

As of this writing, though, the community as a whole is not satisfied with the game. Much of this has come to a head around the game's anniversary. It is common for gacha games like Genshin Impact to celebrate anniversaries and other milestones by giving out rewards to players or holding special events. The only problem is Genshin Impact isn't doing that. Aside from a few community contests and other, largely promotional, marketing events, miHoYo basically hasn't said they are doing anything to commemorate the 1st anniversary of what is far and away the most successful (read: profitable) game they've ever released.

Back in February of 2021, Genshin Impact added an event called Theater Mechanicus as part of its big Lantern Rite festivities. This mode was a sort of tower defense game that challenged players to build death traps of elemental towers against waves and waves of Hilichurls, Ruin Guards, Abyss Mages, and other common Genshin Impact foes.

The major twist with the event was that your character's power completely didn't matter. Whether you were a whale with a full bench of maxed out, S-tier, five-star adventurers or a free player with nothing of the sort, Theater Mechanics was an accessible, challenging, and super-satisfying event to take on in single-player or co-op. The only bummer about the whole thing was that Theater Mechanicus was a time-limited event and it disappeared after just a couple of weeks.

I've been playing Luca Redwood's latest release, Infinity Island, for almost a week now, and I'm a little perplexed. The mind behind innovative, premium titles like 10000000 and Photographs put out an idle game fueled by ads and in-app purchases that is remarkable mostly by how pedestrian it is.

In it, you collect little pets on a cartoonish desert island by launching a hook out to sea to retrieve boxes of loot. These pets produce currency automatically that you can use to purchase various upgrades, almost all of which serve to help you produce currency faster. At various points throughout the game, you can also opt to watch ads to double your rewards or make in app purchases to accelerate your progress. If you ever reach a state where progression seems to plateau, the game offers to reset (or "Infinity") your island and allow you to spend some other currency to accelerate your progression rate on the new island.

Fortnite has been the big hitter in mobile gaming this year, and it's not hard to see why. Thanks to some excellent marketing, and a polished experience that almost anyone can enjoy, it's really taken the App Store by storm.

But there are other battle royale experiences out there if you want to try something different. Some of them are terrible though, so we thought it'd be a good idea to round up what we think are the very best games like Fortnite for iPhone.

We've included links that will let you download the games as well, we're good like that. If you think we've got our suggestions wrong, then feel free to add your own in the comments at the bottom of the article. And don't forget to check out all the other lists on the site by clicking here. Now, without further ado, let's get on with the choices.

Pokemon GO is still the, if you'll excuse the pun, go-to game if you want some AR action on your phone. But it's not the only choice out there, and if you've got a hankering for something a bit different, then your eyes might already have started wandering. Which is why we've written this list of the best iPhone games like Pokemon GO.

Some of them follow pretty similar templates, albeit with different franchises or concepts wrapped around them. But we've pulled a couple from leftfield as well, to give you some different options if that's what you're after. Our aim is to make sure everyone downloads at least one game from this list. We're nothing if not optimistic.

You've probably got your own suggestions about what games should be on this list. If that's the case, make sure you toss them into the comments section at the bottom of the article. And if you click here you'll be able to check out all of our other awesome game lists as well. So that's pretty neat.

Starcraft sits at the top of the RTS tree for a number of very good reasons. It also isn't on mobile, again, for a number of very good reasons. But that doesn't mean you can't find a way to indulge your sci-fi, competitive, massive, or engaging RTS desires if you know where to look.

Luckily, we do know where to look. Essentially it's our job, so we've trawled the App Store to find the best experiences that we think are going to at least sate your Starcraft cravings before you get back home to your PC where you can play properly.

We've chosen what we think are the finest games, but it's entirely possible that you disagree with us. If that's the case, then feel free to chuck your own suggestions in the comments section and get some discussion going. And if you're interested in content presented in list form, make sure you click this link and check out all the rest of the lists we've written.

The Room has had a massive impact on the world of mobile gaming. Not only is it a brilliant adventure, it also shows how the touchscreen controls on your iPhone can be turned into something far more elegant and tactile than just a bunch of buttons. But what to do when you've finished playing through all four games in The Room saga?

That's why we've written this list. So that when it's time to put The Room down, you're not going to have to go cold turkey. The games on this list aren't just clones though, they build on the ideas of The Room and throw their own into the mix as well.

Obviously, if you've got your own suggestions, feel free to chuck them in the comments section at the bottom of the article. And if you want to read more of the awesome lists we write on a weekly basis, you can check them out by clicking right here.

Six months ago this week, Genshin Impact released on multiple platforms, promising a vast open world of adventure and element-based combat. The only catch was that all of this action would be monetized via virtual slot machines known colloquially as "gacha."

Gacha games have their advantages in that they have a low barrier to entry, allowing players to hop into an experience without having to spend any money. The dark side of this design is that all of the most desirable game items and characters are locked inside a storefront that uses myriad psychological tricks to convince you that spending money for more chances to use this slot machine is a good idea (it's not).

The folks behind the Rusty Lake games have just put a new title onto the App Store. Second Maze, Rusty Lake's collaborative publishing brand, has just brought this 10 year old adventure game from Gal Mamalya to mobile. The best part about all of this is thatMitoza is completely free.

The announcement that Dungeon of the Endless is making a return to the App Store via Playdigious as Dungeon of the Endless: Apogee is probably the most exciting mobile news to come out this month. Why? Because Dungeon of the Endless rules, it's perfect for mobile, and it's a shame that it ever got removed from the App Store to begin with.

Anyone who talks to me about games knows that I haven't been able to shut up about Genshin Impact since its launch this past fall. It's a game with a lot of faults--namely its predatory monetization scheme--but it also provides a vast (and interesting!) open world, a novel and nuanced combat system, and a surprisingly compelling story, all of which you can experience without spending a dime.

Since my initial burst of playing in September, though, my excitement to log in every day was beginning to wane. New events and characters were nice new additions, but they weren't entirely well-conceived or received. That is, until miHoYo pushed their 1.2 update which unveiled a new region of Teyvat: Dragonspine Mountain.

Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic II just released on the App Store, and it's not exactly pretty. To be fair, this is over 15 years old, so bringing it to mobile likely has its challenges. That said, the second installment in the Knights of the Old Republic series comes to iOS with a janky control scheme and some bugs that disrupt combat.

Check out the video above where I get through the first real challenge of the game: fighting the mining droids on Peragus. In it, you'll see some struggles with movement, collision issues with combat maneuvering, and even a strange bug that locks your character in place after combat.

From there, you can pass over shelling out $9.99 for this game and pick something else up. This is not the port you're looking for.

Last week, the massively anticipated Genshin Impact released, and now it seems to be the only game anyone's talking about. There's a good reason for this, or rather several. It looks great, it's free, and it actually follows through as an experience that takes meaningful inspiration from Breath of the Wild.

In case you're looking at Genshin Impact from the outside wondering if it's all it's cracked up to be, you're in the right place. The short answer is yes, but here's some more things that might inform whether you should dive into the game.

Apple Arcade has persisted for just over a year at this point, and although that means I've been busy ranking and re-ranking every game on the service for just about as long, I haven't done much reflection on the service as a whole.

If you want the short version, I think Apple has done a decent job at providing a wide variety of titles on its service, and their near-weekly new releases and title updates give you a reason to dive back into the service on a regular basis. That said, the dedication to keeping Arcade feeling fresh alone doesn't quite justify the cost of subscribing, and it seems like Apple has to put in some more work if they want this service to flourish.

Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Apple is disappointed in the performance of Apple Arcade and will be shifting their approach to the service by focusing on games that can retain subscribers and canceling other upcoming releases that don't fit this new vision.

Honestly, the only surprising thing about this news in my mind is the timing. Apple Arcade hasn't even been live for a year, and half of its existence has been admist a global pandemic, mass unemployment, and burgeoning civil unrest. If Apple was confident about its approach to its new games service, I would've thought they'd give it a little more time and leeway before shifting their approach.

I have been enjoying Apple Arcade and have been a loyal subscriber since it launched back in September. I've even given each game on the service a fair shake. But there's no denying that the service hasn't lived up to its promises.