10 Most Popular Mobile Games In The World
10. Subway Surfers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUEumNpjxls
An endless runner in the style of Temple Run or Sonic Dash, Subway Surfers is a highly polished visual experience that reels the player in with tight, intuitive controls and a rewarding gameplay loop. You play as one of any number of street rats who, after being caught tagging something with graffiti, attempt to escape the ever-vigilant Inspector and his dog. Why running along a crowded and dangerous set of train tracks seems advisable to the delinquents is a question best saved for another day.
Subway Surfers is the kind of game that quietly dominates an app store. In 2017, it became the first game to surpass the 2 billion download mark, a full 400 million of those coming in 2017 alone. Consistent updates and events such as the “World Tour” keep the game fresh for fans, but there isn’t much of a community surrounding the game. It’s on this list for its major success, but if your looking for a deep game with an active community, you should probably keep looking.
Marathon Man: Choose one of many characters to make it as far away from the inspector as possible before you slip up.
Runner’s Toolbox: Invest in items using in-game currency to boost your score even higher.
9. Dragon Ball Legends
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLj0DmOvV7E
It’s no secret that Dragon Ball is going through a sort of renaissance, and Dragon Ball Legends is no exception. A card-based fighting game, Legends takes the familiar cast and super-powered attacks from its parent anime and gives the player the reins. Players use in-game currency to summon their favorite heroes from the Dragon Ball universe, and level those characters up by battling them in both a surprisingly well-written story mode, and against their peers in PVP combat. The depth of the combat mechanics and the incredible graphical polish serve the game very well, and players have flocked to it in droves, many abandoning the ever-present Dokkan Battle.
Released on May 15th, Dragon Ball Legends is one of the hottest games on either App Store right now, boasting over 5 million downloads on the Google Play store in its first month. The game’s depth allows for a tight-knit community, as seen on both the game’s subreddit (which has gathered nearly 30 thousand subscribers), and the extremely active Discord channel. If you’re looking for a game with a competitive aspect, or if you’re just nostalgic for your favorite childhood anime, this game is a must have.
Card-Slinging: Use Skill, Strike, Ki Blast,and Ultimate Arts cards to defeat your opponent.
Loads of Modes: Beyond the Story mode, Dragon Ball Legends offers plenty of event to put your skills to the test.
8) Clash of Clans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkWQwG0hkX0
Arguably one of the most heavily marketed mobile games ever, the investment that Clash of Clans has put into its advertising seems to have paid off in a big way. In this city-builder/strategy game, players build up a village on their own or with a group of other players (hence, clans), and use the technology upgrades to make more and more powerful units to use in assaults. The game really shines when the player joins up with other high level players to form a stronger clan, as the larger battles with more expensive units are really a wonder to behold.
As far as mobile strategy games go Clash of Clans is as successful as they come. The game has earned more than 100 million downloads on the Google Play store, according to 42matters, and it has recently retaken then top strategy game spot from its younger brother, Clash Royale. The game’s subreddit is also quite lively, with over 125,000 subscribers discussing strategy, forming clans, and creating memes. Despite being released nearly five years ago, this game doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon.
City Planning: Build up your clan’s village with a little time and resources.
Massive Battles: Deploy troops that you’ve invested in to demolish the villages of other clans.
7) Gardenscapes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CezWScbWp4&t=507s
Gardenscapes is one of those games that you’ve almost certainly been exposed to through advertisements on various web pages and even other apps. The first puzzle game on this list, Gardenscapes combines your typical match-3 gameplay with a garden simulator. Austin the Butler’s task is to take an old abandoned garden and make it beautiful once more. Somehow, he accomplishes this by rearranging vegetation so that it disappears. Addition by subtraction, I guess.
Though you won’t find much of a community surrounding this game, there’s no doubt that it remains incredibly popular to this day. Sporting over 50 million downloads on the Google Play store, it has millions of players daily, and was even named Facebook’s Game of the Year in 2016.
From Deserted to Flourishing: Help Austin turn this decrepit garden into a beautiful oasis.
Getting your hands dirty: Austin helps his garden flourish by completing match-3 style puzzles.
6) Fire Emblem: Heroes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFrF_oqzyNw
Nintendo products are almost categorically successful, and their forays into the mobile market are no different. Fire Emblem: Heroes is a gacha-style game where players summon their favorite heroes from across all of the plethora of Fire Emblem titles ever released. These heroes are used in bite-sized tactical RPG maps, many of which pull inspiration from the games themselves. The ability to customize your units via a skill inheritance tool provide an intriguing way of completing the surprisingly complex battles at the highest levels. There’s even a PVP arena (though, to be fair, it’s really just facing off against an AI using a player’s chosen units). The fantastic art and voice acting for each and every character only adds to the experience.
Fire Emblem: Heroes is one of the less popular games on this list for sheer download numbers, only having been downloaded around 5 million times, but it’s community is one of the most active among all mobile games. There is a Discord with thousands of players sharing strategies, unit builds, and trivia, and the game’s subreddit boasts an astonishing 111,000 subscribers at the time of writing. The only thing missing from this game is a better way of forming groups within the app itself, but there’s no lack of that being done on the web.
Plan Wisely: The grid-based, tactical RPG has wonderfully cute chibi-style characters on the map, but the artwork when thy attack is downright gorgeous.
All-Star Cast: The best heroes from a deep, wonderfully woven series can be summoned to fight at your side.
5) Minecraft: Pocket Edition
When Minecraft originally released way back in 2009 (well, now I feel old), no one could have possibly known the cultural phenomenon that it would eventually become. A couple of years later, when the first version of Minecraft: Pocket Edition released, the hype had reached a boiling point, but the app couldn’t quite match up to the PC version. Over time, the game has fleshed out to have parity with its other releases, and it’s played by millions of people all over the world. In my day job as a middle school teacher, not a day goes by where I don’t see kids cooperatively building (or maybe griefing) on their private servers in the school lobby.
This open, procedurally generated world-builder has sat atop the “Top Paid” charts since its release, and has been downloaded over 10 million times. Keep in mind, this is the only paid app on this list. The subreddit, with nearly 700,000 subscribers, is ranked number 157 in terms of users, and has a proportionally large amount of activity. The sheer amount of customization this game allows for has spawned many smaller communities. If you can’t find a group to play this game with, you simply aren’t looking.
The Great Outdoors: Spawn into a procedurally-generated world and fight for your survival as you mine, build, farm, fight, and more.
Master Crafter: Players come up with some amazing creations, from cities, to castles, to pixel art.
4) PUBG Mobile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IXcFyW5QUg
PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds has been a massive success, fundamentally changing the face of the gaming industry (just look at all the battle royale style games coming up in the next year or so). While the PC and console version have some pretty significant problems, the mobile app, developed by Tencent Games, is nearly flawless. In PUBG Mobile, the player is dropped from a plane with 99 other players either alone, with a partner, or a squad of four to battle it out to be the last one standing. For a touch-based shooter, the controls are very tight, and there are a ton of little quality of life improvements from the main game that make playing on a phone considerably easier than it has any right to be. The game is masterfully developed, and massively fun.
As soon as PUBG Mobile released, and news of its excellence spread, it was clear it was going to be a massive success. I began to see it being played everywhere, especially among students at the high school and even the middle school I teach at. It may be one of the most rapidly downloaded games on either app store, having reached over 50 million downloads since its release in March. Of course, you’ll always be able to find people to play with through the game’s chat, the larger subreddits (/r/pubgmobile has 42k subs, while /r/PUBATTLEGROUNDS has nearly 700k), or one of the many Discord channels created for the game. For those wanting a deeper, more time-consuming game to play on your phone, look no further, but be warned: you’ll need to be able to devote a decent chunk of time for each session.
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner: Strive to be the best, outlasting 99 other players to earn that delicious chicken dinner.
Plenty to do: As you can see from the home screen, there’s a fair bit of customization and tons of different modes to choose from.
3) Candy Crush Saga
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxSA_GJL7rs
In the heyday of Facebook gaming, games like Farmville and Zynga Poker reigned supreme until 2012, when Candy Crush Saga burst onto the scene. The match-3 game with a candy-coated twist was a massive success, leading to the smartphone versions of the game. The game is simple in concept: move candy pieces around the board to match at least 3 pieces and make them disappear. Continue until the board is clear and you can move on to the next level. The levels can get surprisingly tricky, though, which is where developer King.com makes its money. Players can purchase items to help them clear boards more easily, rather than searching for the correct solution.
Obviously, this business model works pretty well, considering the game is still in the top 3 grossing apps on the Google Play store. This is another game that has made it onto the list due to its sheer popularity. On Google Play alone, the app has been downloaded over 500 million times. As of November 2017, total downloads for the game were in the range of 2.8 BILLION. That’s a lot of downloads. There’s not much of a community aspect for the game, however The closest thing you’ll find to that is the odd forum that give the answers to the various puzzles.
Sweet Moves: Make the right swaps to finish within the move limit, or you’ll have to try again.
Sugar Overload: As of writing, there are over 2000 levels available in the game. Try to beat them all!
2) Pokemon GO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aByfSY3iFh8
Every once in a while, a game comes along that starts a wildfire of interest, infiltrates the mainstream, and creates a new culture. Until the next game on the list, Pokemon Go was that game. In the AR-based Pokemon Go, the player must travel around their community to find pokemon of various types and strengths. As the player levels up, they find and catch more powerful pokemon, and use them to fight gyms battles to earn territory for their respective teams. Claiming a gym for Team Valor, Mystic, or Instinct is immensely satisfying, even if your work is almost immediately undone. And collecting your favorite pokemon is a joy to accomplish.
Community is at the core of what Pokemon GO is about. Beyond the 920k subscribers on the game’s subreddit (and the 25k or so on each team’s individual sub), you can join in regional or even local discussions of your team’s tactics. For example, the Houston Team Instinct group has nearly 1,500 members, and still posts fairly actively. There are even more discussions going on around Discord. If you really want to dive into an active community with chances to meet real-life human beings, this may be a game to look into.
A Whole New World: Explore your town in a light you’ve never seen before. Pokestops and gyms are located at interesting locations in your town.
Gotta Catch Em All: You can make different motions with the ball to have a better chance of catching the Pokemon. Try to collect them all, but be warned, they’re still releasing new ones all the time!
1) Fortnite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_88Q-PwJedA
Similarly to Pokemon Go, though maybe not to as great of an extent, Fortnite has become another gaming cultural phenomenon. Taking the same “battle royale” model that PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds used, Fortnite tweaked and perfected their own version, made it faster-paced, and gave it away for free. Today, the game is far and away the most popular game on Twitch, even getting some streamers set for life because of the success they’ve found in playing. One reason that Fortnite has been so successful is the constant change happening in the game’s map. From week to week, the little changes build up to events that mark the changing of seasons, and it’s always a joy to stumble upon something that you didn’t expect. Also, with the purchase of the battle pass, players have a rewarding progression system, earning skins, emotes, and in-game currency to spend on whatever they choose.
The mobile version of the game has found a great home on iOS, and millions of players have downloaded it to take part in the fray. In the game’s first month on the App Store, it earned over $25 million in revenue. There’s no shortage of players, and it’s easy to find a squad to roll with if you’re looking hard enough. There is a very active Discord server for the game, and the subreddit, /r/FortniteBR, sports nearly 800k subscribers. Failing that, you can find someone playing the game anywhere young teens gather, if my schools are any indication. Some teachers have even had to ban the game in their classrooms or schools. That being said, the game deserves the attention it’s getting, and--assuming you have an iPhone--is a solid contender for best Battle Royale available.
Graphical Fidelity: The game hasn’t lost much in the port, and runs as smooth as butter on a powerful enough phone.
Victory Royale: Getting the win is as hard as ever, but persistence pays off!
