As Apple’s premium subscription service, Apple Arcade has received a lot of publicity for its exclusive new content and revamps of existing classic games. 

The tech giant launched the service in September 2019, but its output has gathered momentum in recent months with a string of new titles for subscribers to try out. Partnerships with big-name developers, like Bossa Studios and Konami, have contributed to some very interesting titles: here are seven that players should check out. 

Fantasian

For those of us who remember the Final Fantasy series, our game-playing memories are awash with epic battle scenes and ahead-of-their-time graphics. 

FF creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has since switched his attention to the mobile game market, and Fantasian is the impressive result. It boasts intricately designed landscapes, superb battle scenes and an absorbing storyline. In fact, it’s hard to believe that all this is taking place in the palm of your hand. 

Fans will recognize signs of FF’s glorious past within the game, but it’s a game that feels completely modern – a solid contender for best-ever Apple arcade game.

Hidden Folks 

Not all Apple Arcade games are bursting with colour. Hidden Folks uses an attractive monochrome design to give a unique look to this hidden-objects game. Players must locate hidden characters, objects and animals in different locations, and much of it has more than a hint of Where’s Wally? to it.

The great thing about Hidden Folks is how interactive it is. You can tap each object to find out more about it and talk to different characters. 

Ranked in the top 50 games of 2017 by The Verge, Hidden Folks has a dedicated following of enthusiastic gamers.

What the Golf?

Golf has many stereotypes attached to it. Maybe you think of a middle-aged rich man in an ugly sweater, or a lottery jackpot winner who spends his or her time checking out the world’s most luxury courses. 

What the Golf? presents a completely new image of the famous sport, though, with its bizarre collection of crazy golf levels, where just about anything can happen. We all know about hitting a ball into a hole, but what about hitting a hole into a hole? Or hitting another club with your club?

The game’s mind-bending twists and turns mean you’re definitely going to be entertained.

The Last Campfire

This beautiful puzzle adventure game puts you in control of a soul named Ember, who is responsible for guiding souls lost in the wilderness to safety. 

The setting is an enchanted forest, full of puzzles, mazes, lifts and levers, which you must navigate to achieve your objectives. The more you solve, the more non-playable characters enter the fray to give you help in solving more complex puzzles later. 

A 2021 update added some nice extras, including the ability to replay puzzles to find out how exactly you managed to crack them. 

Wurdweb

If you’re a Scrabble fan, then you’re bound to like Wurdweb. This word game differs, though, in that you get whole words which you need to fit on the board, instead of letters.

The goal is to place a minimum number of words on the board without running out and, like Scrabble, you get points based on their difficulty or which tiles you put them on. 

Chilled gamers will like that there’s no clock or leaderboard: just a pressure-free puzzle on a quiet afternoon.

Sayonara Wildhearts

Some video games are accused of being unoriginal and lacking imagination: you certainly can’t say that about Sayonara Wildhearts. An intoxicating blend of pop art, motorcycles and neon-lit backgrounds await the player as they embark on a musical adventure like no other.

The goal, in theory, is to guide the main character through 23 levels filled with obstacles as they bid to collect as many points as possible. In reality, it’s much more complex than that, thanks to encounters with other characters thrown in to potentially alter your course. 

Released in 2019, it’s still going strong three years later after being nominated for a string of rewards. Plus, it’s got Queen Latifah in it, so what more do you need?

Grindstone

Grindstone blends two very different genres together with great success. On one hand, you have a block puzzle game, which is challenging enough; on the other, a monster battle epic, which involves your character Jorj slicing through scores of beasts. 

The grindstone appears when you smash through 10 monsters in a row: this will let you attack the colour of the beast you’re attacking which allows you to piece together bigger combos. 

Capybara Games have created another gem here, to go with their previous hits Sword & Sorcery and Super Time Force. If you only play a few Apple Arcade games in your life, make sure this is one of them.

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