- We’re in a mobile porting renaissance, with a flood of games coming to mobile
- Although not headed by Balatro, it will likely be held up as an advent
- As technology continues to evolve, porting will give way to simultaneous launches
If you browse the App Store over the past two weeks, you’ll see a great mix of games coming soon. There are your regular new mobile titles that will probably do quite well, things like King Arthur Legends Rise from Netmarble, Archero 2 from Habby, a new Bloons game – Bloons Card Storm – from Ninja Kiwi. Even Steppy Pants returning via HalfBrick+ isn’t that big of a surprise.
However, and perhaps we are all just a little more sensitive to this due to the recent successful launch of the Balatro port, something very noticeable is that we are seeing many more PC and console ports appearing in the AppStore.
We were already well aware of Raw Fury’s upcoming port of Cassette Beasts EX to mobile, so that wasn’t unexpected, but it’s joined by Plug In Digital’s port of Turnip Boy Robs a Bankr, Toge Interactive’s A Space For the Unbound, among others , Grid Legends: Deluxe Edition (from Feral Interactive, acting on behalf of Codemasters), the moody fishing simulation Dredge from Black Salt Games and Dordogne from Umanimation. Oh, and let’s not forget that Capcom continues its Resident Evil porting spree with Resident Evil 2 next.
It seems like we’re in a porting renaissance of sorts, as we have to see not only the recent success of Balatro and the graphically impressive Resident Evil ports, but also the success of cross-platform games like Genshin Impact. There are also games like Infinity Nikki on the way, which will bring the PC, mobile and console audiences even closer together.
Of course, this isn’t the beginning of it all. Companies like Playstack, Playdigious, and Feral Interactive have been competently porting games for years, while indie publishers like Devolver, Raw Fury, and Daedalic Entertainment continue to consider mobile as part of their wheelhouses.
We’ve been celebrating great ports here for a while, but the reason this feels like a renaissance and revival is how recent the games mentioned above feel. Even if we ignore the quantity, the time it takes to get to the port is getting shorter and that’s a good sign. Soon we could even reach a port where more games manage simultaneous releases.
Mobile phones and their graphics capabilities continue to improve much faster than consoles and PCs, which some argue is due to the fact that they simply have to catch up – and that miniaturization is an expected stage of technological evolution – But if it is easier to catch up, then sooner or later you will catch up, and then it comes down to where the money goes. This is the same thing we saw with the mobile phone market in general, where previously ‘outsider’, non-traditional phone makers like Huawei and Xiaomi entered the competition and created a thriving middle market that sometimes leaves phones like Sony and Google behind . own Pixel in popularity.
So it makes perfect sense to expect not only that more and more indie titles will explore the mobile markets, but also – as the platforms all become technologically uniform – that Western games will launch simultaneously on mobile alongside console and PC (because, let’s face it , it is currently mainly developers from the SEA and East Asian regions who do this).
I should take a step back here and say that there are actually more games than ever making the leap from mobile to console to PC – the reverse journey, if you will. Games like Crossy Road Castles, Dadish 3D, and Alto’s Oddyssey are all games I installed on my Xbox and first really enjoyed on my phone.
As someone who occasionally walks the line between the worlds of writing for players and for developers, I see a lot of statistics. More games are now released per month on Steam than on mobile – in fact, it’s been that way for a few years now.
As that information becomes more widespread and the way developers communicate with their communities continues to evolve, no matter what happens with social media, it may become much more feasible to experiment with mobile than with PC.
Add to that the alternative App Stores and alternative monetization methods such as online stores, and I think it’s easy to understand that we’re about to enter a renaissance for premium and ported mobile gaming.
After that… I think it’ll only be a matter of time before we get to largely simultaneous launches for mobile and console – although after all these layoffs the industry will have to start expanding again, with a new influx of mobile-friendly publishers to fill the to keep things on track.
