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Warner Bros. struggles with cause and effect, doubles down on live-service shovelware
Because why do what works?
Over 24 million people have purchased Hogwarts Legacy, Warner Bros.' open-world RPG, since its February 2023 release — more than any other game in the last year. That's the first time in 15 years that something other than Call of Duty or a Rockstar game sold the most. Its estimated budget of $150 million was no small undertaking, but the investment clearly paid off. In that light, we can surely look forward to the next blockbuster single-player title built around a hugely popular universe, right?
18 best online multiplayer PvP games on Android in 2024
Hone your competitive edge with these fantastic PvP games
The Play Store offers many fantastic PvP games you can enjoy on your Android phone or tablet, from fast-paced shooters to RTS games that reward careful planning. Even if you don't play games competitively, plenty of games offer fun and rewarding PvP modes. However, if you'd rather head offline, there are an equal amount of enjoyable offline action games for Android.
Over the years, technology has vastly grown, and games have diversified heavily, opening up the realm of possibilities for digital inclusion in hobbies. And when it comes to balancing your time between your favorite hobbies and your significant other, it can be a real ordeal. But it's no secret that cultivating a healthy relationship between couples means being open about your passions. Thankfully, the advantage of playing great multiplayer games on mobile means most budget Android phones are already well-equipped to handle them, so accessibility isn't a concern. So to make the most out of your experiences without spending too much, we've rounded up a list of some of the best Android games that let you share and bond with your partner.
Mario Kart Tour's online multiplayer will officially land on March 8 (Update: Out now)
It's been a long road, but online multiplayer is finally coming to Mario Kart Tour
It's official, Nintendo has tweeted the arrival date for Mario Kart Tour's long-awaited addition of online multiplayer. Back when the game first landed on Android in September of 2019, it was clear the lack of a true online multiplayer mode held the game back. Two months later, Nintendo released a limited online multiplayer beta for subscription members to test, and then a second beta took place at the end of this past January, and this one was open to the public. Well, now that fans and the general public alike have adequately tested the upcoming multiplayer mode, it's now clear that we can expect the official arrival of Mario Kart Tour's online multiplayer on March 8th.
Niantic has revealed today that a new multiplayer feature tentatively titled Buddy Adventure should be coming to Pokémon GO sometime soon. This new feature will offer a shared augmented reality experience where players will interact with their friend's Pokémon via the AR camera. These friends can watch in real-time as you pet their Pokémon, and cross-platform support is expected, which means iOS and Android users can enjoy the upcoming Buddy Adventure mode together.
Terraforming Mars is a new strategy board game from Asmodee Digital, now available on the Play Store
Yesterday I covered Asmodee Digital's recent announcement that Terraforming Mars would be officially released on Android today. After a quick look at the Play Store this morning, the game is indeed available for purchase. You can pick it up today for $8.99, and this is a premium release, so there are no in-app purchases or advertisements included. Keep in mind, what you actually receive for $9 is the base board game, so the expansions that exist for the physical version are not included, which means the lack of IAPs may change in the future if these expansions ever make their way to the digital versions of the game.
Asmodee Digital published Luckyhammers' digital adaptation of FryxGames' physical board game Terraforming Mars on PC in October of 2018, but thanks to a rough launch the planned mobile release was apparently put on hold. Well, it would appear that Asmodee Digital finally feels confident enough to push out a mobile beta test, which means you can finally pick up the Android version of Terraforming Mars on the Google Play Store for $4.99.
Google's Stadia release seems rushed, as many advertised features like family sharing, a UI for achievements, and the ability to use existing Chromecast Ultras for game streaming are still missing. At least the company is keeping one promise it had made to appease customers during the hectic launch: Buddy Passes are currently rolling out to people who purchased the Stadia Founder's Edition.
It's been a while since there have been any rumblings about Ubisoft's Might and Magic series, with Might and Magic: Elemental Guardians existing as the last entry on mobile that was released in 2017. Today a new contender has entered the ring, and it goes by the name Might & Magic Heroes: Era of Chaos. It's a strategic RPG where you'll restore the Kingdom of Erathia from Heroes of Might and Magic III, and it just popped up on the Play Store for pre-registration.
Activision and Tencent have teamed up to bring Call of Duty: Mobile to the West as a free-to-play release. The shooter was recently announced during a Unity keynote at the 2019 Game Developers Conference. This upcoming release is expected to bring together fan-favorite maps, modes, weapons, and characters from across the Call of Duty franchise, and it's currently available for pre-registration on the Google Play Store.
Back in the not-quite-dark-ages of Android, new services and APIs were launching seemingly every other week as Google and Apple engaged in an aggressive land grab to acquire users and tempt developers. Gaming became a popular battleground, and Google was investing in new features for Play Games like an API that gave developers the infrastructure to run real-time and turn-based multiplayer games for free. However, like many other older Play Games APIs, Google will be shutting this one down in about six months and it may render some older games unplayable.
Bethesda’s E3 2019 show has revealed the first look at the return of Commander Keen, a platforming series that started its life as a DOS game back in 1990. It was one of id Software’s earliest titles, and its corpse has been resurrected by ZeniMax Online Studios (a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media, Bethesda's parent company) as a free-to-play reinterpretation of the series for mobile. As you can imagine, fans aren't very pleased.
Last week we learned Brawl Stars would be coming to Android on December 12th. As of this morning, Supercell has announced on Twitter that the global rollout is already complete, which means you can now download Brawl Stars from the Play Store and start digging into the latest multiplayer arena fighter from Supercell.
Pokémon GO is the poster child for augmented reality. Niantic didn't make quite as big a splash with its first AR game, Ingress, but our collective millennial Pokémon-themed childhood ensured that the company's second effort had a very different reception. Now Niantic looks to be making an investment for the future, as it's just purchased Escher Reality, a startup specializing in backend (read: multiplayer) solutions for VR.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android games that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
Remember that scene from every action movie ever, where the headstrong but academically challenged hero has to be walked through an on-the-job lesson in bomb defusal by the specialist on the other end of the radio/phone/hyperspace ansible connection? Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is basically that experience, set up for two players (the on-the-job hero and remote specialist), and designed to create the maximum amount of tension possible. It debuted on Steam last year, but now it's available on the Play Store for early Daydream VR users.
In 2013, the Daily Express ran an informal poll that determined Winston Churchill's famous response to a Parliament member, "Yes I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly," to be the best insult in history. That's certainly debatable, but it demonstrates that the Brits love a good jape, the more cutting the better. That attitude has been given life in Oh... Sir! The Insult Simulator, a turn-based combat game where insults are your weapons and words are your ammunition.
It's not often that we see an Android game released just for Android TV, aside from the various exclusives that NVIDIA has acquired for its SHIELD set-top box. Hotlap Heroes eschews smartphones and tablets and insists that players experience its old-fashioned racing action on a full-sized television. The 3D racing game, a rookie effort on the Play Store from developer Team Pea, is $3.99 with no in-app purchases.
There's a new paradigm in strategy games. Whereas the old guard in real-time titles like Starcraft, Age of Empires, and Command & Conquer tended to get more complex with each release, the point of Auralux and its imitators is to boil strategy down to its purest components. It does so by making offense, defense, and resource gathering all more or less the same game mechanic, in the tradition of Galactic Conquest (AKA Galcon). Now the sequel to Auralux is out, and it's looking pretty great.
Here's a blast from the past. The original Galcon came to the Play Store when it wasn't even the Play Store - back in 2010 it was still going by the name "Android Market." It was a super-simple strategy game, adapted from an almost ancient PC shareware title called Galactic Conquest. The original mobile game was quite a popular one - sort of a Threes for the real-time strategy crowd - and today the very welcome sequel has arrived on Android.