Features | 09 Jan 2019

Pocket playables: 2019’s best upcoming mobile games

On the hunt for a mobile game that'll keep your interest for more than just a few minutes? Here's the best that proper mobile gaming has to offer in 2019...

The mobile gaming market can be a bit of a mixed bag. For every incredible, lovingly put together indie experience or console-quality blockbuster, there are nine or ten shallow time-wasters with too many ads and oodles of in-app purchases. That’s why we’ve been keeping a beady eye on 2019’s mobile game release schedule – to sort the wheat from the seemingly endless chaff.

What we’ve ended up with is a list of 10 incredible mobile games worth having on your radar, and worth clearing some precious phone storage for. If you’re big on small-screen gaming, these are the titles set to compete for the title of mobile game of 2019…

Night in the Woods (TBC)

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As a mobile port of a much-loved console and PC gem, there’s little to get in the way of Night in the Woods being as big a smash on smartphones as it has been on bigger screens. In it you play Mae, a girl (who also happens to be a cat) who’s dropped out of college following a personal crisis. It’s a beautiful, gentle side-scrolling adventure game about friendship, growing up, hometowns… And murder.

Project Cars GO (TBC)

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A mobile version of the console juggernaut, Project Cars GO is on a mission to dethrone the Real Racing and Asphalt series’ as the best looking racer available in your pocket. It’s shaping up to be an incredible experience too, with 100 unique tracks, dynamic weather and time of day effects, detailed suspension and damage systems, as well as a smooth 60fps framerate.

Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm (TBC)

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The first Oceanhorn was an epic Zelda-like adventurer that took players on a deep, island-hopping quest. Its sequel has been a long time coming, but that’s because its scope has increased tenfold – this looks set to be the ‘Breath of the Wild’ of mobile adventurers, with gorgeous 3D environments to explore, oceans to navigate, and foes to vanquish.

Diablo Immortal (TBC)

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As if to act as a sign of the way gaming could be going in the long term, Blizzard’s next instalment in the much-loved Diablo series is shunning a PC and console release altogether, and heading straight to mobile instead. It’s a fully-fledged dungeon-crawler, with no half measures – a rich, massively-multiplayer online experience that takes place between the events of Diablo 2 and 3.

Payday: Crime War (TBC)

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Another online multiplayer affair, Payday is also making its way to mobile; it enjoyed a successful closed Beta phase late last year and is now in the final stages of a full release. In it you’ll choose to play as either a hardened criminal or a no nonsense member of law enforcement, before shooting it out while the former attempts to rob banks, jewellery stores and more. Expect frenetic, madcap action in spades.

Overland

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Overland is a spooky, post-apocalyptic turn-based RPG, in which you need to shepherd a motley band of survivors across a procedurally-generated USA. At every turn you’ll face a new challenge, a tough decision to make, and a volley of mutant monsters to either fight or run from, and everything you do promises to have lasting consequences to your story.

Elder Scrolls: Blades (TBC)

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It’s been on the horizon for a while, but Elder Scrolls: Blades’ release date keeps slipping back as developers Bethesda make sure it delivers on its enormous promise. As a full Elder Scrolls title available to play in either portrait or landscape – and all with just one hand – Blades looks set to showcase the absolute best that the intersection between console and mobile gaming has to offer.

Sky (TBC)

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Sky is being created by the team behind the beautiful, award-winning Journey, and looks set to follow a similar recipe: stunning visuals, a great score, and simple gameplay held aloft by collaboration and environmental storytelling. All we know so far is that the game’s set in an expansive kingdom in the clouds – one where “generosity and compassion is key to lighting your path.”

Super Meat Boy Forever (TBC)

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Otherwise known as Super Meat Boy 2, this is a direct sequel to the record-breaking hard-as-nails platformer whose two-man development team became the star of industry documentary, Indie Game: The Movie. Quite how Meat Boy’s precise, inch-perfect gameplay mechanics will transfer to mobile is unclear, but an iOS and Android port is slated for 2019 all the same.

Where Cards Fall (TBC)

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Being made in partnership with Snowman – the development team behind Alto’s Adventure and Odyssey – Where Cards Fall is an intriguing looking indie about childhood experiences, growing up, and how our interactions shape us as we mature. The bulk of the game will focus on logic puzzles to do with the titular playing cards, but all we really have to go on right now is the (very pretty) trailer above.