This is great for people who love strategy games but don't own PCs, as it makes the genre far more accessible than it typically was. It only makes sense that several-years-old games work well on them. Smartphones are getting more and more powerful, and the performance divide between them and computers, while still large, is shrinking. Civilization 6, Bad North, This War of Mine, Darkest Dungeon, XCOM: Enemy Within and more are all available on your handset (some on iOS, some Android, most both).ĭevelopers are clearly starting to realize that touch controls give you as much versatility as a mouse for controlling units, selecting buildings, or scrolling around a map.Ĭivilization VI is available on mobile devices (Image credit: Aspyr Media, Inc.) Each has been perfectly optimized to run great on phones and tablets, and we're huge fans of all we've played.īut that's not all. XCOM 2 certainly isn't the first popular strategy game port to hit mobile devices, but, given the scale of the game, it may be among the most ambitious.įeral Interactive, which helmed the port, has also brought over Rome: Total War and all of its expansions, Company of Heroes, and Tropico.

But, as with all games like this, we couldn't stay away for long. We found ourselves quickly turning off our iPad on more than one occasion, knowing the only way to save a favorite soldier was simply not to play, because we'd gotten them into a mess they couldn't get out of.

Thanks to smart enemy AI, soldier permadeath, and a whole host of increasingly hard-to-kill enemies, it's a really tense game to play. It's a tense squad-based strategic adventure in which you save the world from aliens, controlling both small squads of soldiers in intense battles, and maintaining the day-to-day running of your home base. Generally, though, this is the XCOM 2 you know (or don't know) and love (or are yet to fall in love with).

We tested the game on a third-gen iPad Pro 12.9 - battery drained fast while playing, and the tablet could heat up quite a bit if we played for too long, which is worth knowing if you're planning to play for a long time, or away from a charger. XCOM 2 runs well on iOS devices (Image credit: 2K Games)

Xcom 2 ipad pro