Best Mobile Games: 25 Excellent Touchscreen Titles For iOS And Android

The best mobile games can look like just about anything. A social deception game about a suspicious crew on an alien spaceship. The latest entry in the biggest strategy series in the world. A serious single-player story about love and loss. A game where you, for some reason, must build a boat.

A decade ago, smart money said that mobile games would replace consoles as gamers increasingly turned to their phones for convenient fun. But, it’s 2021, and Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo are all still going strong. Paradoxically, the mobile market has never been bigger, with millions of players using their phones to play a wide variety of games, including portable versions of the most popular multiplayer games in the world, like Call of Duty, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, and PUBG.

However, none of those games are on this list. Instead, we’ve tried to pick games that are easy to pick up and get into and can be played skillfully without the use of a controller. Because who wants to carry an Xbox One controller with them on the bus? Read on for our picks for the 25 best mobile games available on iOS and/or Android, listed in alphabetical order.

If you do prefer gaming on mobile with a controller, make sure to check out our roundup of the best phone controllers. If you have an Apple Arcade subscription, we've rounded up the 12 best Apple Arcade games right now.

Among Us

Among Us is easy to understand--it’s social deception in space!--but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to fool your friends. As a round begins, each innocent player has tasks that they must accomplish, while impostors have no tasks but must attempt to appear innocent. All the while, each impostor is concocting a plan to kill their fellow crewmates without being seen. When a body is discovered, everyone gets together to decide who they should chuck out an airlock. Pray it isn’t you. Despite releasing in 2018, Among Us was one of 2020’s biggest hits, buoyed by a worldwide pandemic that kept us separated. The game was so popular that congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar streamed it on Twitch and Epic borrowed from it in Fortnite’s recently added “Impostors” mode. If you’re interested in checking it out, the game is free on iOS and Android and just five bucks on Steam and Nintendo Switch.

Civilization VI

The long-running strategy series has typically been associated with the PC. But, with solid touch controls, Civilization VI on iOS and Android is an effective port that allows you to hold the fate of the world in your hands... or in your pocket. Firaxis tested the waters first with an iPad version, but now you can play the critically acclaimed 4X game on basically any up-to-date iOS or Android device. If you’ve never played the series before, the pitch is simple: You choose a nation to guide through the ages, playing as its ruler. Traits vary from nation to nation and leader to leader. As you play, you will do the things that nations throughout history have done: build cities and get into wars. But your playstyle, and the resources you’re given determine what characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages your nation will take on as you play. It’s a compulsively playable turn-based strategy game (with a great, soaring soundtrack), and it works great with a touch interface. See our Civilization VI review.

Device 6

Before it made 2019 Apple Arcade standout Sayonara Wild Hearts, a gorgeous playable pop album, developer Simogo created Device 6, a gorgeous playable noir novel. This stylish text adventure casts players as Anna, a woman with amnesia attempting to puzzle out who she is and why she has awakened to find herself on a mysterious island. All of this plays out in text, but Device 6 has a ridiculously great presentation that manages to make the written word visually engaging, as text moves around the screen to create a sense of space. For example, words might arrange themselves diagonally downward to suggest that our protagonist is descending a flight of stairs or the page might flip upside down entirely. Pair that with a moody jazz soundtrack and a graphical style that takes the look of a typical novel or eReader and plays with the player’s expectations of how text should behave, and you’ve got a smart, sticky puzzler that demands to be played and, ultimately, solved.

Downwell

This devilishly smart roguelike does what it says on the tin: It’s a game where you play as a little guy trying to stay alive while descending ever deeper into a well. The game has a simple aesthetic (it’s black, and white, and red all over) that belies an incredibly elegant design. As Mark Brown of Game Maker’s Toolkit said in his excellent video on the game, Downwell embodies the Shigeru Miyamoto quote: “A good idea is something that does not solve just one single problem, but rather can solve multiple problems at once.” In Downwell, that means that the gun boots you use to shoot enemies are also your primary means of slowing and controlling your descent and clearing a path through destructible obstacles. That’s just one example of the economy design on display in Downwell. If that all sounds a little too theoretical, let us just say: The touch controls feel great and intuitive and it’s compulsively playable enough that I’ve had it on my phone, on and off, for the past five years. See our Downwell review.

Florence

A gorgeous game about love, loss, and letting go, Florence is a romantic drama that communicates its story with very few words. Instead of spoken language, Florence relies on touch-based mechanics and simple puzzles to wordlessly express the joy of falling in and out of love. With a beautiful hand-drawn aesthetic and a lovely, melancholy soundtrack by composer Kevin Penkin, it is surprisingly emotional to experience the story of protagonist Florence Yeoh as she falls in love with a musician named Krish. Their relationship plays out in small, smart mini-games, as when you must fit puzzle pieces together to suggest a conversation, or choose where to place objects around an apartment after the couple moves in together. Though the game can be completed in one 45-minute play session, Florence manages to pack a wallop in that short amount of time.