Produced alongside our friends at PocketGamer.fun - THE place to discover your next favourite mobile games - here's our pick of the best fresh-this-week titles.
While the deals and the stats of the gaming world are important, nothing would happen without the research, funding and, of course, development that goes into making a great game. PocketGamer.fun brings you latest games, lets you see them in action and download right from the page.
So here are the most exciting new mobile games right now, the developers and publishers behind them, and why, exactly, they've made the cut.
Changokushi! Onee-chan Sangokushi
Japanese video game designer Yoshiki Okamoto has opened pre-registrations to his first foray into blockchain gaming with Changokushi! Onee-chan Sangokushi. The title will mark the first entry in his in-house original NFT game series that will be based on the famous historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
There are plans to release more games in the series later this year, but for now Changokushi! Onee-chan Sangokushi is in the spotlight as pre-registrations get underway, encouraged through the promise of up to 20 free spins on the gacha for those who get on board early. This will naturally be one of the game’s monetisation methods, as will its NFTs, with the title aiming to serve as "introduction to NFT play". The characters can be bought outright with a credit card if players don’t want to get into blockchain, or they can play for free if they would rather not spend.
As for the gameplay, Changokushi! Onee-chan Sangokushi is a rogue-lite auto-battler RPG for mobile. Bringing experience from Konami, Capcom and Rockstar, Okamoto’s next project is certainly one to watch.
Hime's Quest
The Game Boy Color returns! Sort of… Hime’s Quest is a retro-style video game from Crunchyroll that initially released on the Game Boy Color in 2023 (yes, you read that right), really taking its 8-bit ambitions to the extreme. And now, one year later, this Game Boy Color title has made its way to mobile.
In the modern tech landscape where mobile devices can run Triple A games, a GBC title making the move is something of a quaint idea, but no less exciting. The premise is retro too, set in 1999 with a DVD/VCR combo to boot. The titular Hime must explore dungeons, save the pixelated world, pet a cat, and more.
Hime has been Crunchyroll’s mascot for over a decade, her primary colour being orange to reflect the streaming site and her design taking clear anime inspirations. Needless to say, her own game launching on mobile is bound to lead to an extra Crunchyroll subscription or two.
Another Bar Game
After 2020’s Dude, Where Is My Beer?, Norwegian games developer Arik Games is already getting meta with its second game, aptly named Another Bar Game. But this time around the genre is completely different - no longer a point-and-clicker and instead a casual action title.
The beers in the bar have entertaining names too, like the refreshing "anti-imperialistic coconut porter", setting the tone for a comedic game all about serving drinks and keeping customers happy. Bartending duties also extend to washing glasses, balancing drinks and pumping beer as quickly as possible - the types of skills that can be upgraded as players progress, much as in real life…
Another Bar Game has launched cross-platform on Nintendo Switch, Steam and Apple’s App Store, with no Google Play release in sight.
Thunder Ray
Crunchyroll has been busy this week, having launched a second new game in the form of Thunder Ray. Instead of a pixel RPG like Hime’s Quest, Thunder Ray is a fighting game all about taking down interstellar threats in the boxing ring. It’s a Crunchyroll exclusive and doesn’t pull any punches on the cartoon violence, with blood and gore abound as players box and beat their opponents into submission.
Evil aliens come to the ring from across the galaxy into an arcade-esque experience harkening back to days gone by, though utilising modern mobile tech with touchscreen controls instead of a joystick. (You can’t put anything past Crunchyroll after Hime's Quest…)
Subscribers at Crunchyroll’s Mega Fan or Ultimate Fan levels can download Thunder Ray for free, the latest perk as the subscription-based giants continue to compete for a slice of the gaming pie - be they Crunchyroll, Apple Arcade or Netflix.
Kingdom: The Blood
Speaking of Netflix, the streaming service has just released Kingdom: The Blood based on the acclaimed 2019 series, Kingdom. The game is set in Korea during the Joseon era and has been made in a collaborative effort between Action Square, YJM Games and A Story, bringing a dark aesthetic and relentless survival battles.
As for gameplay, Kingdom: The Blood is about fighting off hordes of zombies through raids with combo attacks to master, guards to break and executions to deliver. There’s also a PvP mode for players who want to face off against someone a little more human.
Netflix’s expansion into games has been developing slowly over the past few years, with a library steadily growing as the streaming giant looks to tap into a new audience - and to keep its pre-existing subscribers entertained between seasons.
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