Hello from your favorite trash mobile gamer! I’m here to bring you the latest news in the mobile gaming sphere, despite never having played Fortnite or Genshin Impact. Generally, I think it’s not cute to be purposefully ignorant of something, but the sheer amount of trashy mobile games I play juxtaposed against my refusal to play the two biggest mobile games is in fact quite funny to me. I hope we all enjoy my struggle to explain what’s going on in the world of Fortnite.
So, What Is Going on in the World of Fortnite?
Fortnite took a trip down memory lane earlier this month by bringing back its original map—referred to as “Fortnite OG”—and playstyle. The game boasted its highest playcount ever on November 4, when people ought to have been celebrating the glorious day of my birth, with 44.7 million players revisiting the hit shooter. According to player count trackers, that count was almost double the average for the rest of the year. Bringing back the map also included the return of some favorite weapons and items, as well as areas that had been destroyed in in-game events.
As Kotaku points out in their report, this follows Epic Games laying off around 900 employees and a price hike for V-bucks, Fortnite‘s in-game currency. According to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, the company had been overspending, and most of the revenue from Fortnite came from creator content revenue sharing. This big spike in players is no doubt beneficial to the company, though not so much for the employees the company laid off in the last couple of months.
Resident Evil Village Launches for Mobile
Mobile game ports are… well, they’re something. They can be quite good or quite terrible, and they have never hooked me as surely as the console or PC version of the same game (maybe because my taste in mobile games is distinctly trashy?). Well, Capcom is joining the fray with a mobile version of Resident Evil Village, now available for a variety of Apple devices—specificially the iPhone 15 Pro, 15 Max, and iPads with M1 or M2 processors. A trial version is available for free right now through Apple’s App Store.
Resident Evil Village officially came out on MacOS in 2021, but the mobile version is new. Reviews are largely positive on the App Store at 4.0 stars, with the biggest share going to one- and five-star ratings, as customer reviews are wont to do. Reviews praise the framerate, which seems to run between 30 and 60 fps, but cite bugs and crashes as issues. Hopefully these things will be patched in future updates.
What’s New in My Dating Sims
Please imagine I’m saying “my dating sims” the way a grandmother might say “my stories” to refer to soap operas.
Those in the know may know that, no matter how ill-advised it may be, I am devoted to the Love Island: The Game franchise, now in its second iteration, season four, “Stick or Twist.” In Love Island: The Game, much like the TV show, you play a sexy single out to mingle in a beautiful villa full of fellow sexy singles, who must couple up or get dumped. In the end, one couple will take home prize money—or one member of the couple will stick it to the other and claim the whole prize for themselves.
Now, the thing about Love Island: The Game is that it’s very easy. Pick a person you want, flirt a bit, couple up, and you’ll most likely coast to the end, aside from a few islanders who are off-limits or who can’t be romanced until specific points in the game. I like a little challenge, so my goal in Love Island: The Game is to kiss every eligible person on the island before I settle down with my chosen partner. So far, I’ve got two left—Evan, the sweet, beautiful boy currently coupled up with my nemesis, Daphne; and Vicky, the brand-new bombshell who remains woefully out of reach for the time being (because the other bombshell, Travis, chose to couple up with me because I was trying to dodge Bonnie’s thirst. We already kissed, Bonnie. I’m sorry, but you have served your purpose).
The truth about this season is that it’s really weak and I played three episodes yesterday but couldn’t tell you what happened in them. What I can tell you is that this season’s fashion is heinous, which is saying something because since we moved over to LI:TG2, the fashion has been extremely bad. Somehow, it just keeps getting worse! Fusebox wants me to spend gems on these outfits!
In non-Love Island mobile dating sim news, I’ve fallen into Lovelink and actually paid real money (well, free Google Play credits I got for doing surveys) to date Kev, the world’s worst e-boy TikTok (sorry, YakTok) rapper. Readers, I love him. I hate him. I am forever saddened by the fact that apparently a huge chunk of Ludia/Jam City staff were laid off and I may never be able to make this horrible boy fall in love with me.
In other news…
Starting November 12 and running through November 16, Clockmaker, a match-3 puzzle game, is running a promotion that awards players with a variety of in-game items and donates money to save sea turtles.
Crunchyroll has launched the Crunchyroll Game Vault, which, for Mega and Ultimate Memberships, allows access to a number of premium mobile games, including River City Girls, Wolfstride, and Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery. The Game Vault offers no ads but does offer in-app purchases, and many will be exclusive to the platform.
In great news for cozy gamers, Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley is due out early next year. The game will have players taking on the role of Snufkin of the Moomin series to restore the natural beauty of Moominvalley, distracting cops and knocking over statues in the process. Snufkin says ACAB.
Baker Street Breakouts: A Sherlockian Escape Adventure, mixes detective mechanics with escape the room mechanics, in great news for me, specifically. It’s out November 13.
Out November 9, Tiny Connections is a puzzle game with a beautiful pastel color palette in which you connect houses and necessary resources in a confined space. It sounds lovely.
In “big oof” news, AdVenture Capitalist developer Hyper Hippo has laid off 27% of its workforce. The studio called the layoffs necessary “amidst the evolving mobile games industry.” The studio stated that all laid-off employees received severance pay, extended health benefits, and support resources, and shared the info of 13 of the laid-off staff on LinkedIn to help them find new jobs.
Half of Take-Two Interactive’s—the holding company that owns Rockstar and 2K Games—over one billion dollars in profit in the second quarter of the 2023–2024 fiscal year came from mobile games. That’s not a huge surprise, given that Take-Two also owns Zynga, but god damn, half?! We’re talking the holder of Grand Theft Auto here!
Build a Queen, the exact kind of trashy game I download thanks to Instagram ads, was the most-downloaded Google Play Store game in September, but didn’t even touch the top 20 on Apple’s App Store. Why? Because us Android users are people of taste. Bad taste, but taste nonetheless.
Melissa Brinks is Sidequest’s editor in chief, co-creator of the Fake Geek Girls podcast, author of The Compendium of Magical Beasts, and an aspiring beekeeper. She once won an argument on the internet, and tweets at @MelissaBrinks.
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