Best 5 Free Mobile Games of 2019
Free-to-play games often get a bad rap from mobile gamers, quite rightly in some cases, and so it's important to remember and celebrate the titles that get it right. This year has seen a few major releases struggle to successfully implement F2P monetisation, same with some of the indies to be honest, but there have been a number of recent hits that have won over fans and made a tidy sum of money in the process. Fancy that.
With free-to-play continuing to dominate the mobile market, it'll be interesting to see whether subscription services like Apple Arcade, Google Play Pass, and GameClub can shift that balance at all. Only time will tell.
In the meantime, let's all enjoy and celebrate some excellent free games, starting with the following five.
Dungeon FasterThis one is so darn good that our Dave put out a piece arguing why it should win this year's MGA's. It's a neat hybrid of sorts, mixing together elements of strategy games, roguelikes, and card battlers. It's also one of the best free-to-play games of the year, funnily enough.
You'll explore a series of dungeons, gradually uncovering every nook and cranny, one tile at a time. The more you explore, the better your chances of finding new gear and weapons. But with the reward comes a sizable risk of instead stumbling upon an enemy.
It's perfectly suited for mobile, with straightforward controls and a focus on bite-sized play sessions. There's also a great sense of progression as you continue to expand your deck and earn advanced loot.
As Dave notes in his feature, it's also a rare example of free-to-play monetisation done right, with appropriately priced IAPs and offline play. It's currently only available for Android, though an iOS version is on the way. And, honestly, I'd be more than happy to start from scratch again when it arrives.
Call of Duty Mobile (2019)
Call of Duty: Mobile is an undeniably polished and content-packed first-person shooter. On a technical level, it's probably the best FPS we have on mobile right now, with stellar visuals and great touchscreen controls that rarely get in the way of the action.
It's basically the best parts of COD condensed into a single package. Boasting a ton of fan-favourite maps, guns, and killstreaks, it's also likely to remind you of why you fell in love with the series in the first place. And to top it all off, the free-to-play elements are better than you'd perhaps expect.
Void Tyrant
Void Tyrant blends the basics of Blackjack with some smart, easy-to-learn roguelike mechanics. It starts out simple enough, but you'll soon uncover layers of hidden depth to its systems.
There are dozens of hours of fun to be had here, with something like 500+ cards to play and three distinct classes to test out. Simply put, of all the games I've recommended to friends this year, it's Void Tyrant that's won most of them over.
Black Desert Mobile
Pearl Abyss' Black Desert Mobile is among the best MMOs you'll find on mobile. Its player-friendly design, fast-paced combat, and expansive world are the main draws, but it's the smart balance of accessible gameplay and long-term depth that'll keep you around.
It also offers what is basically the best, most detailed character creator I've seen in a game. If you care about that sort of thing, you can easily lose hours to tinkering with the settings and making your hero unique to you.
The Elder Scrolls: Blades
This one didn't have the best start in life, launching to a poor reception from fans and critics. Its flat-out bad free-to-play monetisation and iffy progression caused many to abandon ship early on, but Bethesda has gradually started winning folks back, including the aforementioned Dave.
Gone are the awful chest timers, and the slow progression has been improved dramatically thanks to a recent update. Sure, it's still not the "Skyrim for mobile" experience some players had hoped for, but it's now a quality dungeon crawler with a bright future ahead of it.