Where Could Apple Arcade Go Next?

When Apple Arcade first launched, it was hard to really get a feel for what it would be. It seemed ambitious, yet incomplete; it had some fun games, but a handful that also felt like average mobile games at best. And it wasn’t immediately clear if Apple users would bother to get on board.

Over time though, Apple Arcade has grown steadily. A combination of fresh development and acquisition of popular properties has resulted in a collection of games that really does feature some of the best entertainment you can find on a mobile device. The service is beginning to resemble what it seems to have been meant to become, and it seems as if it may only be getting started.

That last bit, of course, opens the door to some interesting speculation about where Apple Arcade could turn next in its apparent quest to conquer the mobile gaming arena. Lots of ideas come to mind, and to be clear we aren’t reporting on any with inside information. But if the goal is to rope in (and retain) as many subscribers as possible, a handful of possibilities make particularly good sense….

Fighting Games

There are plenty of Apple Arcade games that involve combat of one sort or another. Bleak Sword is something of an 8-bit brawler; Samurai Jack is basically the definition of a slasher; LEGO Brawls is packed with playfully violent action; and Oceanhorn 2 is a full-fledged adventure with plenty of sword-swinging. What Apple Arcade doesn’t really have yet though is a go-to fighting game in the spirit of popular hits throughout time like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, or even Super Smash Bros. This genre is always popular, which would seem to make it fertile ground for Apple to explore — either through a well-made original or by way of acquiring or partnering with known properties.

Zelda

This is our most specific suggestion, and it’s based on two vague indicators. The first is Apple’s partnership with Nintendo, which brought Mario to iOS devices a few years ago. And the second is the presence of a few Apple Arcade games — like Legend Of The Skyfish 2 and Towers Of Everland — that seem to have been at least loosely inspired by Zelda (or the types of games Zelda inspired). Neither of these indications means that an Apple Arcade Zelda game is imminent. We’d certainly still bet against it. But given the Mario move, such a development wouldn’t be without precedent, and it would be one of the best ways to boost Apple Arcade’s profile.

Poker

Poker is something of a forgotten gaming genre, at least in the U.S. where a good portion of Apple’s business is. It’s not that there aren’t poker games out there; there are plenty. But it’s almost hard to remember today just how big online poker was some 15 years ago. Apple can’t bring back that era alone, because it disappeared largely as a result of legislation prohibiting real-money poker games. But Apple can certainly fill some of the gap by producing a high-quality poker game within Apple Arcade. Only a couple years ago, a report on Pocket-Lint revealed that Apple was bringing its own Texas Hold’Em game back, so this idea probably isn’t much of a stretch. A similar game, updated in the general fashion of Apple Arcade, might just give droves of poker players the go-to mobile experience they’ve been missing.

Bingo

Bingo is another vaguely casino-related game Apple could pursue almost as a sort of counterpart to poker. With a poker game, Apple would be looking to help revive something from the past; with bingo, it would be getting in early on a budding trend. Recent years have shown online bingo to have a surprising capacity to evolve and gain popularity, and largely in ways that Apple Arcade would excel at imitating. These ways are demonstrated chiefly by Foxy Bingo, which uses everything from a Friends theme, to a cheerful fox cartoon character, to a pirate-geared “80 Matey” game (complete with pirate ship and parrot graphics) to make digital bingo a little bit more interesting. And frankly, this playful, cartoon-like approach seems ideal for Apple Arcade. If it wanted to, Apple could quickly develop a similar bingo game or category, and tap into a piece of the surprisingly large player base that has made the online games so prominent of late.

Text-Based Adventure

Somewhat like the fighting game genre discussed above, text-based adventures always seem to be able to carve out space — no matter how sophisticated gaming gets. We can have all the advanced graphics, open worlds, and jaw-dropping action developers can muster, and a clever, challenging text-based adventure will often be just as fun. There’s no specific reason to believe this particularly idea will or will not come to fruition, but it does seem like one of the simpler ways for Apple Arcade to broaden its audience. A great text mystery will generate some publicity, and likely attract some subscribers.

Fringe/Faux Sports

Apple Arcade has a fairly active sports category already, but it’s some of the fringe titles that really make it shine, because they’re able to be unexpected — and, frankly, weird. Ultimate Rivals: The Rink turns hockey into a sort of free-for-all, Tron-esque brawl between athletes; Warp Drive – Teleport Racing imagines a high-octane future racing sport; Cricket Through The Ages was described by Pocket Gamer as “delightfully mad” before its release, and lived up to the description. Basically it’s the weird sports games that work, and Apple Arcade hasn’t tried nearly enough of them yet. Could developers make something good out of lesser-known Olympic sports like curling or sport climbing? Could there be a spin on an imaginary sport like Quidditch from the Harry Potter universe? There are a lot of possibilities in this space, and it would be fun to see Apple explore them.

Even without any of these ideas under consideration, Apple Arcade has become pretty impressive. As it keeps growing though, these would be among the most fun and most strategic avenues to pursue. And if big changes do come, our news and updates will be on top of them.