Video games didn’t get much airtime during Apple’s September “It’s Glowtime” event, but that doesn’t mean it’s out of the game just yet. Many of the company’s big hardware announcements not only mean it’ll continue to improve game performance, but that it’s bringing those features to non-Pro models.
Apple also made hardware changes to the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro’s thermal capabilities that’ll reduce heat and result in 30% higher sustained performance. The A18 chip in the regular iPhone 16 also helps it to achieve hardware-accelerated ray tracing that’s up to two times faster than the A17 Pro in the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max (the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus only had the two-year-old A16 chip). This means more realistic lighting and shadows, which was previously only available on the M3 and A17 Pro Bionic. It also continues Apple’s commitment to reaching console-level gaming quality on its phones that could potentially match what players can get with the Mac’s M3 chips.
The newest game shown off during the presentation besides Honor of Kings: World, which isn’t out yet, is 2023’s Resident Evil 4 remake. The Death Stranding: Director’s Cut was released for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS in January 2024.
According to mobilegamer.biz, these games haven’t been selling well. It proposes that under 3,000 people have shelled out the $50 to pay Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which launched in June 2024. Digital Trends tried out Resident Evil: Village on an iPad Pro, and found it was “nothing short of a miracle,” with smooth frame rates and graphical fidelity
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.