This week we learned in mobile games that Blizzard will not to bring World of Warcraft to mobile anyway, new Bomberman and Jetpack Joyride games are coming to Apple Arcade and Clash of Clans is 10 years old. Or maybe 40? It’s hard to say.
There are also three fantastic new games to play: an indie hit about propaganda and passport control, a gripping tale of grief and memories, and an all-action downhill bike game.
Let’s get into it, shall we?
World of Warcraft Mobile is no more
The long-rumored mobile version of World of Warcraft has been canceled, according to a report from Bloomberg. The game was apparently three years in development and was pitched as a spin-off of the PC game set in a different time period, but still intended to provide the same kind of online role-playing experience as the original.
The reason for the cancellation is unclear. Bloomberg reported that it was a financial disagreement between WoW creator Blizzard and co-developer NetEase, but this has since been denied by an Activision Blizzard spokesperson.
This is a strange one. A game can be canceled for many reasons, but most of the time it is financial. If the game is not expected to make enough profit, it will be hacked. But WoW is a huge brand and a hugely loyal fan base, one that’s all but guaranteed to pick up and play a mobile version of the beloved MMORPG.
Also, Blizzard and NetEase just co-developed and launched Diablo Immortal, and it was a huge success. You could imagine that the same Blizzard-NetEase tag team would be more confident than ever that a mobile WoW experience would work.
Perhaps the cost and technical challenges of running a large, complex online world full of players on mobile devices, in all their different shapes, sizes and capabilities, were just too much.
Those still craving a bit of World of Warcraft on mobile will now have to wait for action-strategy spin-off Warcraft Arclight Rumble, although that still doesn’t have a release date.
Bomberman and Jetpack Joyride Boost Apple Arcade
Apple continues to add interesting things to its Arcade service, even though it’s now starting to remove some games from the catalog because contracts don’t renew.
This month we noticed two new games in particular: Amazing Bomberman and Jetpack Joyride 2. The first is, you know, Bomberman, the four player game where you blow each other up. But this edition has a musical theme, which means that the stages change and intensify in addition to the soundtrack.
And more Jetpack Joyride is always good. It’s a true classic from the early days of the App Store. The sequel comes with nicer graphics, more bizarre powerups, and even a story mode.
Amazing Bomberman is out today and Jetpack Joyride 2 is out August 19th. Elsewhere on Apple Arcade this month, there’s the virtual pet game My Talking Tom (coming August 12) and the indie puzzle adventure Love You To Bits (coming August 26).
Clash of Clans is celebrating a birthday. We’re not sure.
The game that launched a million build-and-battlers, Clash of Clans, celebrated its 10th anniversary this week, and developer Supercell had some fun with its anniversary celebrations.
First, it created a full alternate history of the series and wrote it all in one lavish mockumentary tells the ‘inside story’ of the series, from its humble beginnings in the 1980s with pixel art platformer Clash to the N64-esque kart racer Clash Dash of the 1990s and the ‘edgy’ megaflop Clash: Cradle of Darkness of the 2000s .
In fact, Clash and Clash Dash are real, playable games that you can watch through your iPhone or iPad browser on the anniversary site. (They don’t work on Mac, unfortunately.)
There are, of course, also retro-themed 10-year anniversary events in Clash of Clans itself.
What to play this week?
“Paper, please”, but small. August 5. pic.twitter.com/87o8IqfCdFJuly 23, 2022
We released three major games this week: Papers, Please, Descenders and Hindsight. They are all great and all worth the money upfront.
Papers, please (opens in new tab) is Lucas Pope’s multi-award-winning indie game, neatly optimized for iPhone and iPad. It was once on the iPad before but was presumably removed from the App Store due to OS update issues. But now it’s back and it works really well on both iPhone and iPad indeed.
You play as an immigration inspector who manages the flow of people in and out of the fictional communist state of Arstotzka. Its message about people, power and propaganda remains incredibly poignant, more today than when it was first released in 2013.
Next, Descenders (opens in new tab) is the popular downhill bike game that has been tearing it up on PC and console for a few years now, ported to iPhone and iPad with style.
As your rider hurtles downhill, use the virtual sticks on each side of the screen to keep them on two wheels and try a few tricks while you’re at it. It’s really excellent, and the songs are procedurally generated, so it’s different every time you play.
Working at a slightly slower pace is afterwards (opens in new tab)the new game from Joel McDonald, who won Apple’s Game of the Year award for his 2015 debut Prune.
This one is quite different from his first tree-pruning game. It is an interactive story experience where important objects from the life of the main character Mary become literal gates to the past. So it’s a mix of puzzles and almost point-and-click adventure-like exploration, with gripping choices to be made along the way.
Published by Annapurna Interactive, it feels very much at home on that label, which is fast becoming the home of critically acclaimed indie games.
Until next week!
-Neil Long
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