Apple’s next generation of iPhones has arrived, and the iPhone 16 Pro has caught our eye with its powerful new processor and camera. But, a smartphone’s home screen isn’t complete without a game or two, and the iPhone 16 family is well-equipped for your on-the-go gaming needs.
The iPhone 15 Pro made waves last year, bringing last-gen console games like Death Stranding to certain new iOS devices. There are still plenty of other console games we’d love to see added to the App Store, but nonetheless there are a plethora of quality games to flesh out your new iPhone 16 Pro’s entertainment experience—whether you’re passing a few idle moments, or settling in for a prolonged gaming session. Here are a few of our current favourites (and one upcoming, soon-to-be favourite).
[Note: As always, I recommend investing in a quality mobile controller if you intend to use your smartphone as a dedicated gaming device. Be it the Razer Kishi Ultra, Backbone One, or SteelSeries Nimbus+, having proper buttons and thumbsticks makes a massive difference.)
5) Assassin’s Creed Mirage
Having Death Stranding on a smartphone is one thing; it’s several years old at this point, so ports to other platforms seem a given. But Assassin’s Creed Mirage is also playable on iPhone 16 Pro despite being barely a year old, and that in itself feels like a miracle.
Obviously it doesn’t look as beautiful as it would on PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X, but the novelty of having a full modern game running on your smartphone shouldn’t be ignored either. It helps that Mirage returns to the roots of the Assassin’s Creed formula, which makes it a great fit for mobile.
4) Warframe
Digital Extremes brought their free-to-play third-person shooter to mobile devices last year, and with cross-play now enabled, it’s easier than ever to use your iPhone 16 Pro to extend your cybernetic ninja experience when you’re away from your home console.
With the iPhone 16 Pro now on the market, it’s a great time to hop aboard Warframe, at least for its more mission-focused gameplay modes.
Recent updates for this long-running game have upped the narrative stakes and brought some invaluable quality-of-life upgrades like cross-save, while a bold new expansion, Warframe 1999, is coming later this year. With the iPhone 16 Pro now on the market, it’s a great time to hop aboard Warframe, at least for its more mission-focused gameplay modes. It’s easy to hop in and play a few missions, even on a lunch break or a bus ride.
Digital Extremes is releasing an in-game demo of Warframe 1999 on October 16, so any player who’s completed the tutorial can hop in and check out a trial of this exciting new chapter in the decade-long saga. The timing is pretty perfect.
3) Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil Village, and a couple other Capcom classics are already available on iOS, but Capcom has just announced one more bombshell classic will be playable on iPhone 16 Pro at the end of the year: Resident Evil 2.
While the survival horror forefather has had a return to form in recent years, Resident Evil 2 is just a timeless classic. The 2019 remaster rejuvenated its gameplay and performance, and it will surely stun on the most recent Apple smartphones as well. The advanced speakers on the Pro will make that creepy audio ambience all the more chilling.
2) Disney Pixel RPG
Gacha games come and gacha games go, but GungHo Online’s new offering, Disney Pixel RPG, looks incredibly promising. Likewise, the close proximity between the launches of this game and the iPhone 16 Pro feel like good ol’ Disney storybook destiny.
Disney Pixel RPG feels like a cross between Kingdom Hearts, Wreck-It Ralph, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse with a dash of my dearly departed Final Fantasy Record Keeper. A plethora of (unfortunately fictional) Disney games have been invaded by monsters called mimics, which are wreaking havoc in search of data, and impersonating famous characters like Maleficent and Pete. The player creates an avatar and forms teams along video game variants of Disney icons—from Baymax and Nick Wilde, to Chip n’ Dale and Marie, to a host of different Mickeys.
In Spider-Verse style, each fictional game within Disney Pixel RPG‘s setting lends a unique animation style to its representative characters, so the DJ Mickey from a rhythm game has a distinctly different vibe from the Hero Mickey who hails from another RPG-style game (that isn’t Kingdom Hearts—which had better be featured in a crossover event at some point). The animation is charming, the world is vibrant, and the gameplay doesn’t seem as aggressively grindy as other games of its ilk. This could be an instant classic for new iPhone 16 Pro owners.
Unfortunately this game arrives as another of Disney’s more imaginative mashups, Disney Mirrorverse, is about to be sunset. Hopefully Pixel RPG will have a long and healthy life on iOS in its place.
1) Balatro+
I’ve been hearing rumblings about Balatro for a while, but as someone who’s never gotten into poker, I was admittedly dismissive. But while reviewing the iPhone 16 Pro, I noticed the Apple Arcade iteration, Balatro+, and figured I’d give it a shot.
And now I may have a new mobile game addiction.
Balatro is a deck-building roguelite that uses poker as its foundational gameplay concept. You don’t truly need to know anything about poker to play, however; simply make combos from the cards you draw and score enough points to clear the round. After each round you can spend your earnings on new effects or variables.
There are over 150 Joker cards that truly spice up the experience, awarding point multipliers or wild new variables and card upgrades. After only a half hour, I realized this game has a little bit of everything from the various forms of card games, from the traditional standards like Poker, to trading card games like Magic: The Gathering, to party games like Uno. It’s simple to pick up, a long time to master, and a thrill to play along the way.
Better still, it’s perfectly suited to the iPhone 16 Pro (or any other compatible iPhone for that matter). It’s included in Apple Arcade, and playing a round or two takes very little time, so you can even sneak a couple in during brief waits in your daily life—if you can bring yourself to only play a couple, that is.
