Thanks to the efforts of many publishers, including major names like Netflix and Devolver Digital, mobile games have enjoyed an amazing year. The partnership resulted in a variety of downloadable gems including Poinpy – a gravity-defying strategy game that kept us entertained for months. Netflix also brought us other mobile hits this year – including ports of cinematic mystery Immortality, and the great new update of Into The Breach. These were only a few. Some of the most popular mobile games of 2022. There are many There are many other games you can celebrate.
On the blockbuster front, we had Second Dinner and Nuverse’s Marvel SnapThe game featured colourful, fast-paced, heroic action and a collectible card spinning. The game was a huge success when it was launched in 2022 and continues to be a big hit on the mobile gaming scene. There are also some darker aspects. Vampire Survivors also entered the mobile market in late 2022, just squeezing into this year’s GOTY contention.
Continue reading to see our review of the top mobile apps of 2022.
Vampire Survivors
If you’ve played Vampire SurvivorsYou can understand why Vampire Survivors is so compelling. If you haven’t played Vampire Survivors, then trust me – I know it looks like a bad Castlevania fan game, but just throw yourself in for 30 minutes, and you’ll get it.
Vampire Survivors has created a whole new genre, and that’s not something you can say about many games released in 2022. It’s a game that takes the idea of ‘bullet hell’ – a term for shoot-em-up games that involve dodging a ridiculous amount of projectiles – and applying it to your player character, which creates an incredibly satisfying power curve that you can experience in 10-minute runs. Start with a throw knife. You will end up with a smattering of projectiles and blades.
The game does all the hard work – attacking – for you. You just need to keep moving to avoid enemies and maintain the correct distance so your weapons remain effective. You’ll strategically build your loadout from a variety of different options (many of them secret combinations) as you mow down more and more enemies. The stakes quickly rise as you face hundreds of enemies. The thrill of being able to unleash that kind of destruction, even for just a moment, is addictive.
We had the year full of battle royales. The year of Among Us. We now have the year of Vampire SurvivorsIt is a great game, and deserves to be considered one of the most memorable games of 2022. It’s on Xbox Game Pass. Mobile version is also available for free. There is no reason to be ashamed. – Edmond Tran
Poinpy
Every time you touch it in Poinpy, Your sense of touch and pleasure are extraordinary. You will be slingshotting a cute little dinosaur through the air. Each touch and pull of the invisible gun will slow down the time and give you a tactile sensation (which you can use to determine tension and trajectory), and Poinpy will fly in a satisfying manner. With each tap, you’ll stop Poinpy in his tracks and slam him down on enemies, using them as a squishy trampoline to bounce upward again.
There’s more to it, though. Poinpy You must keep moving upwards in order to win. You’ll be continually launching Poinpy into the sky, ricocheting him off walls, slamming Poinpy down into enemies, bouncing off them, and watching Poinpy get squished around like a cute little stressball. It never gets boring.
Read: Devolver Digital finally gave Netflix Games its best apps.
Aside from the inherent satisfaction from those motions, Poinpy is also a score-chasing game, meaning the stakes behind those actions are always high – the more time you spend off the ground, the greater your reward, and so each pull-and-launch, each slam, each concerted move has the potential to be your last. It’s so giddying when you manage to defy gravity for just a few more seconds, and when you inevitably do touch the ground, you always want to try your luck once more.
Poinpy was incredibly hard to put down this year, and I didn’t, until I had squeezed every last achievement out of it, beaten every friend who challenged me to a score competition. It’s even more fun, and has one of the most enjoyable gameplay mechanics in 2022. Poinpy Pure joy. – Edmond Tran
Into The Breach
Into The Breach It is hands down one of my favorite games (at least according to me). It’s a perfectly-distilled turn-based strategy game, where every move you make has the capacity to completely turn the tide of a battle. In the game’s perpetual war between giant mechs and bug-like kaiju (portrayed in adorable fashion), battles take place on an 8×8 chess-like grid, with every enemy movement resulting in a devastating amount of destruction to buildings and your mech team – unless you can stop it.
Every upcoming enemy action is clearly telegraphed, as are the results of your possible actions, which means there’s a lot of mental exercise happening in Into The Breach. There are many mechs in the game, as well as themed squads that each have their own unique abilities.
You’ll make tough decisions and sacrifices – block an attack and lose the life of your pilot, or sacrifice the citizens and risk losing the whole campaign? You’ll learn that pushing and pulling enemies is often far more effective than killing bugs outright. You’ll analyse every possible move to ensure the result is ultimately beneficial. You’ll somehow pull off impossible ‘Hail Mary’ manoeuvres using your abilities in creative new ways.
Into The Breach This is amazing. And it’s even better when it’s on a gaming platform you always have with you. Arriving in 2022 as part of Netflix’s exclusive mobile game offerings to subscribers, it’s joined Poinpy in making Netflix Games seem like an essential service – particularly with its good touchscreen interface and all the new features in the game’s Advanced Edition update.
Is this the best mobile game ever? It’s an easy inclusion for one of the best mobile games of 2022. – Edmond Tran
Knotwords
2022 was the most certain year of. Wordle, However, for us, it was the mobile game that we found that held our attention most often. Knotwords, Jack Schlesinger and Zach Gage are long-standing developers. They are known for creating stylish mobile games with clever design twists. Simple, elegant, and incredibly clever, you can think of playing Knotwords like solving a crossword, only it’s cut up into segments of a variety of sizes, each with its own small pool of letters that must be used. It’s a Sudoku puzzle with letters.
The fact that it’s not a straightforward anagram solve makes the feeling of accomplishment that much sweeter – you’ll often have to piece the word from multiple pools of letters. With the difficulty of the standard set of puzzles gradually escalating over the course of the week, it’s an incredibly satisfying game to keep up with. You will feel like a genius when you solve the Sunday puzzle.
Kudos must also be given to the game’s generous approach to daily streaks. If you forget to play one day, not all is lost – simply start and maintain another 7-day streak and you’ll retrieve your old streak and stack that new one on top. It’s a very friendly and welcome approach that makes Knotwords great to return to. – Edmond Tran
Immortality
One of the fantastic things about video games is the kind of powerful experience you get when you feel you’re in control – as an active participant, when you’re charting your own destiny, creating your own goals, putting together the pieces of the puzzle with your own volition. It’s one of the most gratifying things in the world. It’s also one of the most powerful games you can play. You can suddenly lose all your power. It will make you feel helpless. Uneasy. Fearful to stop.
Read: Immortality review – Picture perfect
Sam Barlow’s narrative mystery game (Her Story) and the team at Half Mermaid, Immortality Your task is to become the protagonist in your own story. Your task is to sort through reels and footage from raw cameras, which were filmed for three different movies but never released.
And it’s so, so incredibly captivating. For long stretches you’re a voyeur, using your own initiative peeking behind the curtain of the creative process, and discovering intimate details about the people involved. Before the director calls ‘action’ and after he calls ‘cut’, you’ll discover subplots, motivations, relationships, and piece together several overarching, interconnected narratives. You’ll start putting the bigger picture together in your head, and feel like a genius detective the whole time. Well, almost.
At a certain point, Immortality It will make you tremble, shake your world and scare you from going on. However, it will also intrigue your morbid curiosity and make it impossible to resist seeing the whole thing through. You’ll stay up late, being sucked right into the lives of these characters in an intense parasocial relationship. You’ll explore and ponder themes of artmaking, exploitation, and the creative spirit. Everyone involved’s performances are complex, multi-faceted and absolutely captivating.
Immortality It is crucial and unmistakable. – Edmond Tran
Marvel Snap
Marvel Snap The collectible card game has been made more fun and faster, while still maintaining the same great strategic decisions. And you don’t need to be a Marvel fan to appreciate how focussed and cleverly designed the game is.
Fashioned around the battle to build up the most power at two of three locations across just six turns, taken simultaneously by both players, there’s never a dull moment in Marvel Snap. After all, there’s only seconds before you start having to carefully consider your next move in each match.
Read: Marvel Snap designer Kent-Erik Hagman talks smart card game design
You will be constantly surprised by the new games thanks to the use of randomization as a weapon against surprise. As each card is revealed slowly, it feels like every match will be different. You must strategize to maximize boons and salvage as much as possible from destruction and debuffs.
You will find beautiful card art, Marvel characters in a variety of colors, and other cool effects. Marvel Snap It excels in creating a highly approachable and compelling strategy game. It’s so easy to pick up, satisfying to play, and there are so many nuances to learn and appreciate. With matches lasting for minutes at most, it’s so incredibly easy to keep playing Marvel Snap Every day. Every day. Five months and counting. I can’t stop. – Edmond Tran
Wylde Flowers
Wylde Flowers Australian-developed, this hybrid farm simulator/adventure game is a unique blend of a story, style, and message of inclusion. The game’s core is about magical witches, the dream of moving to quieter country towns, and its fantasy. Wylde Flowers It is a story about how to overcome prejudice and learn from it Belong In a harsh world. Protagonist Tara embodies this in multiple ways – she’s an outsider yearning for deeper meaning after a bad breakup, and attempting to find welcome in the quiet town of Fairhaven.
Read: Wylde Flowers review – Perfect escapism for a busy world
As she later discovers, she’s also a witch – and witches are subject to rumours and fear-mongering in the town. When the existence of Tara’s new coven spills into the ‘real world’, conflict brews between townsfolk, leading to major clashes that must be resolved through good communication and problem solving.
Between these story beats, you can spend your time in a wonderful world getting to know everyone in what is an excellent life simulator, planting seeds, selling crops, fishing, and foraging – all delightful activities that feed into the game’s wild and magical storyline, and make it one of the best games of 2022 on any platform, but especially on mobile. – Leah J. Williams
You can find more information about the best games in 2022 by exploring our rest of our year-end coverage:
Keep checking back for more Game of the Year lists from GamesHub staff and special guests from the games industry.
