2022 is packed with highly anticipated mobile game releases, and we’re listing down our favourites of the bunch.
A ton of mobile games are poised to take over our lives in 2022, and we’re honestly not sure which ones we’re looking forward to the most. Will it be Valorant Mobile, which finally lets us play Riot Games’ hit first-person shooter on the go? Will it be Diablo Immortal, an all-new entry in the franchise that looks surprisingly good despite its disastrous early reveal? Or will it be Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis… for the nostalgia?
Why choose one, when you can have them all? Here are our most anticipated upcoming mobile games of 2022:
Valorant Mobile
Riot Games has a neat little first-person shooter you might’ve heard of: Valorant. Although the multiplayer shooter is currently only playable on PC, Riot plans to launch a mobile version later this year. The developer considers this the first step in expanding Valorant’s ‘universe’, presumably by first getting the game into the hands of more players. We don’t know much about Valorant Mobile right now, but we can assume that it will launch as a slightly different version of its PC counterpart - much like League of Legends: Wild Rift - and receive more content later on.
Expect Riot to announce a beta for Valorant Mobile sometime this year, where we'll hopefully get a chance to see how it's shaping up.
Diablo Immortal
Diablo Immortal had a rough go of it initially, but the game is shaping up to be something special for fans of the franchise. The fact that it’s launching on mobile platforms changes very little - this is still a Diablo experience that stays loyal to everything fans love about the action-RPG series. You can pick from six character classes: the Barbarian, Monk, Wizard, Necromancer, Crusader and Demon Hunter, to hack and slash your way to high-tier loot. You'll even keep your progression even when switching between characters!
This game is developed by Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase. Just like the core Diablo games, it’ll come with multiplayer raids and competitive PvP.
Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis
Final Fantasy VII has received more spin-offs than we can count at this point, but it all comes full circle with Ever Crisis. This mobile game retells the entire story of the Final Fantasy VII universe to date, including every canonical spin-off the original game has received (and the movie Advent Children!). Ever Crisis can be played through in selectable chapters, which will let you catch up on different titles from the media franchise at your leisure.
Ever Crisis’ battle system, story and visual aesthetic stay loyal to the original Final Fantasy VII, making it an arguably more faithful remake than Final Fantasy VII Remake. If you were upset by all the changes introduced in Remake and would like to play a remake that feels more true to the original game, or you just want to catch up on other games that aren’t necessarily playable on modern consoles right now - Ever Crisis should be right up your alley.
Without spoiling anything, the Final Fantasy VII Remake series is shaping up to be more of a sequel to the original game than a straightforward remake, so it might be worth catching up on all these spin-offs before the sequel arrives.
Garena Undawn
Undawn is shaping to be quite an impressive multiplayer survival game. This game is set in a zombie-ridden post-apocalypse, where players can either cooperate with one another to survive and share resources or fight one another to remain on top of the food chain. Players can explore a large open-world environment with dynamic weather and day and night cycles, using various weapons to fend off hungry, hungry zombies.
We reckon Undawn’s biggest draw will be its PvE/PvP elements and open-world exploration. When you’re not teaming up with friends to fight either humans or zombies, you can explore what Garena calls a ‘vast’ open world, which will hopefully be filled with lots of activities and points of interest to keep you occupied. You can even establish a pretty posh base, complete with triple-story housing, pools, golden statues and well-trimmed shrubbery.
Path of Exile Mobile
RPG fans who’d like to steer clear of Diablo have one very enticing alternative to consider: Path of Exile Mobile. Developer Grinding Gear Games is making a mobile version of its hit dungeon-crawler Path of Exile, and seems committed to making it worth your while. Path of Exile Mobile is being made by the studio in-house, without having development work outsourced to outside developers, so you can expect a pretty authentic experience that stays true to what everyone loved about the original game.
Like any dungeon-crawling RPG worth its salt, Path of Exile Mobile should allow you to play as different character classes as you hack and slash your way to better loot. This game also won’t include microtransactions and pay-to-win gameplay, which is nice to know ahead of its eventual release. Hopefully we get more news on this title soon.
Jujutsu Kaisen: Phantom Parade
Jujutsu Kaisen 0 was great and all, but Season 2 of the anime is still a long way off. Short of reading the manga itself, fans can get their fix this year by checking out a new mobile game based on the series: Phantom Parade. The game features three new characters, all shown off in its opening cinematic (animated by MAPPA!): Saki Rindo, Kaito Yuki and Kensuke Nagino. The former two are students at Jujutsu High School’s Fukuoka branch, which Kensuke Nagino oversees. We’re not sure how they’ll fit into the story of this game just yet, however.
Plenty of familiar faces fans love from the anime return as playable characters, including Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushiguro, Maki Zenin, Panda, Nobara Kugisaki, Satoru Gojo and more. Early gameplay footage has revealed a mix of visual novel-style storytelling and turn-based combat. The mobile game could serve as a recap of the story so far, but with these three new characters, we could get some original content too.
Clash Heroes
Supercell’s hit strategy game Clash of Clans is getting three spin-offs, and Clash Heroes is easily the most appealing of the bunch. Building upon the art style and characters introduced in the original game, Clash Heroes is an action-RPG built with the Unreal Engine. In this game, you’ll take familiar characters - such as the Barbarian - out for a spin in exotic new locations as you fight your way through hordes of enemies in real-time combat. New enemies will pop up along the way, like massive cacti bosses, to make things difficult.
While gameplay details are scarce for now, Clash Heroes looks a lot like a Diablo game with much less emphasis on looting. The game will enter public alpha testing soon, so we should get more information as the tests roll out.
Battlefield Mobile
Back in 2021, Electronic Arts announced that it was expanding the Battlefield franchise to mobile platforms after, “years of prototyping.” In 2022, the publisher will launch a completely new standalone Battlefield game designed for smartphones and tablets, developed with Industrial Toys. You heard that right - it’s completely standalone, not a mobile port of any other Battlefield game.
Electronic Arts promises a “fully-fledged, skill-based experience,” that won’t compromise on the large-scale all-out warfare Battlefield games are known for, so we’re excited to see what that looks like on mobile platforms. From the early gameplay seen above, we know that it's keeping the games' trademark high level of destruction with big maps and a modern setting. Here's hoping it fares better than Battlefield 2042.
Apex Legends Mobile
Another first-person shooter enters the mobile fray this year. Respawn Entertainment’s battle royale Titanfall spin-off Apex Legends is coming to mobile platforms this year. You’ll get to play as all of the game’s original Legends: Bloodhound, Gibraltar, Lifeline, Wraith, Bangalore, Mirage, Pathfinder and Caustic, along with Octane for good measure. The game is currently going through a limited release in selected countries, but will launch globally later this year.
Apex Legends has gone through a lot of changes in the past few years, and shows no signs of slowing down. It has outlived the battle royale craze, and new players now have an easy opportunity to find out why. You can check out our review of Apex Legends Mobile here.
Star Wars: Hunters
Star Wars: Hunters is a multiplayer PvP arena combat game set after the fall of the Galactic Empire, featuring a colourful cast of characters hellbent on taking each other down. You’ll fight in arena maps set in dense forests, snowy planets and more in fast-paced combat, playing as new faces in the Star Wars universe. These ‘Hunters’ range from Droidekas named Slingshot to Jedi and Sith alike, all of whom seem to be dealing with the end of the Empire in their own special way.
Star Wars: Hunters will hit iOS and Android devices, as well as the Nintendo Switch.