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Every December, while the rest of the world argues about “Game of the Year”
on consoles and PC, Apple quietly drops its own verdict: the
App Store Game of the Year. If you want a shortcut to the
very best iPhone games from the last decade and a half, Apple’s list is a
surprisingly great place to start.
In this guide, we’ll walk through every Apple iPhone Game of the Year
winner from 2010 through 2024, with context, trends, and a few
recommendations along the way. Think of this as a time machine through
mobile gaming: from the days of tossing zombies off your lawn to sprawling
cross-platform gacha RPGs that can eat your entire weekend.
Whether you’re a collector trying to play them all, an Apple fan curious
about how the App Store Awards evolved, or just hunting for your next great
game night obsession, this list has you covered.
How Apple Chooses Its Game of the Year
Apple’s Game of the Year pick isn’t just the highest-grossing
or most-downloaded game. Instead, an editorial team at Apple highlights
titles that combine:
- Outstanding design – touch-friendly controls, smart UX, and strong visuals.
- Innovation – new mechanics, creative storytelling, or clever use of Apple tech.
- Broad appeal – games that feel approachable, even if they’re deep.
- Cultural or community impact – games people actually talk about.
Over time, Apple’s awards have expanded into multiple categories:
iPhone Game of the Year, iPad Game of the Year, Mac Game of the Year,
Apple Arcade Game of the Year, and more. For clarity and SEO sanity,
this article uses the iPhone category as the main spine of the timeline
that’s usually the headline category and the one most players care about.
Timeline: Every iPhone Game of the Year (2010–2024)
2010–2013: Early App Store Classics
2010 – Plants vs. Zombies
Apple’s very first iPhone Game of the Year pick set the tone.
Plants vs. Zombies turned tower defense into garden warfare:
you lined up cute but lethal plants to fend off slow-shuffling zombies
determined to invade your house. It was simple, funny, and tuned perfectly
for short mobile sessions and it proved that phone games could be as
addictive and polished as anything on PC.
2011 – Tiny Tower
In 2011, Apple crowned Tiny Tower, a charming pixel-art
“tower management” sim. You build a skyscraper floor by floor, moving in
residents (Bitizens) and assigning them jobs. It’s a masterclass in
free-to-play design before loot boxes went wild: light timers, steady
progression, and a surprisingly cozy vibe that kept people checking in
several times a day.
2012 – Rayman Jungle Run
When Apple picked Rayman Jungle Run in 2012, it sent a loud
message to traditional publishers: if you port your big franchises to mobile,
they need to feel native to touchscreens. Jungle Run distilled the
essence of Rayman into a one-touch auto-runner with gorgeous art and tight
level design. No on-screen virtual d-pad, no awkward porting just pure,
tap-to-jump perfection.
2013 – Ridiculous Fishing – A Tale of Redemption
In 2013, Apple went full indie hipster with
Ridiculous Fishing. The gameplay loop is exactly what the
title promises: you drop a line, dodge fish on the way down, hook as many as
you can on the way up, then blast them out of the sky with absurd weapons.
Under the silliness, though, is sharp game design and a story about a
fisherman trying to redeem himself proving mobile games could be both
goofy and emotionally resonant.
2014–2018: The Indie Golden Age
2014 – Threes!
Before 2048 clones flooded the internet, there was
Threes!, Apple’s 2014 pick. It’s a tiny, elegant number
puzzler where you slide tiles on a 4×4 grid to combine 1s and 2s into 3,
then 3s into 6, and so on. No battle pass, no daily login bonus just a
perfectly tuned “one more game” puzzle that feels like it could’ve existed
on a wooden board in a café somewhere.
2015 – Lara Croft GO
In 2015, mobile officially became a home for prestige puzzle adventures with
Lara Croft GO. Instead of trying to cram a console Tomb
Raider into a phone, the developers turned Lara’s adventures into a
turn-based puzzle game that feels like navigating a living board game.
Apple’s Game of the Year pick here signaled that big IPs could thrive on
mobile by adapting, not copying, their console mechanics.
2016 – Clash Royale
Clash Royale was Apple’s nod to the rise of competitive,
live-service mobile games. Built out of the Clash of Clans universe, it
mixed tower defense, card collecting, and real-time PvP into a format
perfectly tuned for 3-minute matches. The monetization spawned a thousand
imitators, but the core gameplay is so tight that the game still has a
massive competitive scene years later.
2017 – Splitter Critters
In 2017, Apple flipped back to indie genius with
Splitter Critters. On the surface, it’s a simple
side-view puzzle game where you guide little alien creatures to their ship.
The twist: you literally slice the level apart with your finger and
slide pieces around like paper, creating new paths. It’s one of the most
satisfying uses of a touchscreen ever, and a reminder that mobile hardware
isn’t a limitation it’s a design opportunity.
2018 – Donut County
2018’s Donut County is a physics puzzler where you play as
a sentient hole in the ground. You move the hole around, swallowing
everything in sight so it grows larger and larger from coffee cups to
entire neighborhoods. It’s absurd, cozy, and quietly satirical, poking fun
at tech culture, gentrification, and our habit of consuming absolutely
everything. It’s also short and sweet, making it a perfect “weekend game”
you can finish in a couple of sittings.
2019–2024: Live-Service Epics & Cross-Platform Giants
2019 – Sky: Children of the Light
After Journey changed how people thought about online play,
thatgamecompany brought its signature emotional style to mobile with
Sky: Children of the Light. Apple’s 2019 pick drops you into
dreamy kingdoms filled with other players, but there’s no text chat or
lobby drama just gestures, shared exploration, and co-op puzzle solving.
It feels like a social network designed by a poet instead of an engagement
team.
2020 – Genshin Impact
When Genshin Impact landed and then won Apple’s 2020
iPhone Game of the Year, it shattered the idea that “real” open-world RPGs
had to stay on console. Yes, it uses a gacha system, but it also delivers a
shockingly large, beautifully rendered fantasy world, complete with
elemental combat, fully voiced storylines, and regular major updates. For
many players, this was the first time a mobile game truly felt like a
full-fat AAA experience in your pocket.
2021 – League of Legends: Wild Rift
Apple’s 2021 Game of the Year,
League of Legends: Wild Rift, did the impossible: it took a
famously complex PC MOBA and made it playable (and fun!) on a phone. The
matches are shorter, the controls are redesigned for touch, and the roster
is tuned for mobile, but it still feels like League. More
importantly, it cemented mobile as a first-class destination for competitive
esports-style games.
2022 – Apex Legends Mobile
In 2022, Apple tapped Apex Legends Mobile as iPhone Game of
the Year. The battle royale craze was already in full swing, but this
adaptation stood out by mirroring the fluid movement and hero-driven combat
of the PC/console original while tailoring matches and controls for phones.
Like Clash Royale and Wild Rift before it, it proved that mobile ports
didn’t have to be watered down they just had to be thoughtfully redesigned.
2023 – Honkai: Star Rail
Apple’s 2023 winner, Honkai: Star Rail, leans into the
anime RPG side of mobile gaming. It combines turn-based combat with
high-end character art, lavish cutscenes, and a galaxy-spanning story. It’s
a gacha game, yes, but it’s also a love letter to JRPG fans who grew up on
turn-based battles and now want that same depth on a train commute. Apple’s
pick here highlights how mobile has become a primary platform for
story-driven RPGs, not just a side hustle.
2024 – AFK Journey
By 2024, the line between “idle game” and “full RPG” had blurred, and
AFK Journey walked right down the middle. Apple honored it
as iPhone Game of the Year for its mix of tactical battles, lush fantasy
world-building, and an “away-from-keyboard” progression system that keeps
rewards flowing even when you’re not actively playing. For busy players
living in notification chaos, it’s the ideal formula: deep team-building and
strategy, but on your schedule.
Other Notable Apple Game of the Year Winners
While this article focuses on the iPhone Game of the Year
category, it’s worth mentioning a few standout winners from Apple’s other
platforms:
- The Room – iPad Game of the Year (2012): a tactile puzzle box game that basically invented “luxury escape room on a tablet.”
- The Witness – iPad Game of the Year (2017): a deep, meditative open-world puzzle experience shrunk beautifully onto touchscreens.
- Gorogoa – iPad Game of the Year (2018): a hand-drawn puzzle adventure where you rearrange illustrated panels like a comic book.
- Moncage – iPad Game of the Year (2022): an optical-illusion puzzler built around a rotating cube filled with tiny dioramas.
- Lost in Play – iPad Game of the Year (2023): a storybook adventure about childhood imagination.
- Lies of P – Mac Game of the Year (2023): a soulslike action RPG proving that serious “core” games can shine on Apple silicon.
- Balatro+ – Apple Arcade Game of the Year (2024): a wild poker-roguelike that turns deckbuilding into pure chaos in the best way.
Taken together with the iPhone winners, these picks show how seriously Apple
takes gaming across its ecosystem not as an afterthought, but as a key
part of what makes Apple devices fun to own.
What Apple’s Game of the Year Winners Reveal About Mobile Gaming
Look at these winners as a timeline and you can see the entire story of
mobile gaming in fast-forward:
-
Premium to free-to-play:
Early winners like Plants vs. Zombies and Threes! were
mostly paid, premium experiences. As you move into
Clash Royale, Genshin Impact, and
AFK Journey, free-to-play with ongoing updates becomes the norm. -
Snack-sized to full-course:
The 2010–2014 era is all about quick-hit puzzle and arcade games. From
about 2015 onward, many winners are essentially console-scale: full RPGs,
live-service titles, and deep strategy games. -
Indie experimentation never died:
Even as massive live-service titles took over, Apple kept highlighting
smaller, weird, and wonderful games Splitter Critters,
Donut County, and Moncage all remind developers that
originality still gets rewarded. -
Touch-first design wins:
Every pick, from Rayman Jungle Run to
Honkai: Star Rail, nails controls and presentation for a small
screen. That’s the secret sauce: the games that embrace touch, swipe, and
portrait play instead of fighting them rise to the top.
For players, Apple’s Game of the Year list is basically a curated back
catalog of the must-play mobile titles of the last 15 years. For
developers, it’s a roadmap: prioritize polish, respect your players’ time,
and design for the phone you actually have, not the console you wish you had.
Experiences: What It’s Like to Live Through Every Apple Game of the Year
Imagine lining up an old iPhone 4, a first-gen iPad, a modern iPhone 16 Pro,
and an Apple Arcade subscription, then playing every Apple Game of the Year
in order. It’s not just a tech nostalgia trip; it feels like watching game
design itself grow up in fast motion.
Start with Plants vs. Zombies. On a small screen, the grid is
tight, the visuals are simple, and the entire experience is built around
taps and drags you can easily pull off with one thumb. It’s the kind of game
you play while standing in line, the music looping cheerfully in the
background as you debate whether to save sun for a melon-pult or panic-spam
wall-nuts.
Move forward a few years to Threes!, Lara Croft GO, and
Splitter Critters, and you can feel mobile devs gaining confidence.
These games are clean, focused, and minimalist, but they radiate personality.
You’re not fighting a thousand menus or currencies; you’re just sliding
numbers, tracing paths, or nudging a puzzle board and thinking,
“Of course this belongs on a touchscreen.” There’s a real sense of
experimentation here a belief that phones aren’t just “lesser consoles”
but their own design space.
Hit fast-forward to the 2019–2024 stretch and the vibe changes again.
Sky: Children of the Light makes you feel like you’re gliding
through a dream, bumping into strangers who might silently help you light a
candle or find a secret area. Genshin Impact drops you into a
sprawling world where you’re juggling elemental reactions, weekly bosses,
and seasonal events all from a device that also holds your grocery list.
There’s a surreal, “I can’t believe this runs on my phone” quality to these
games that never really goes away.
With League of Legends: Wild Rift, Apex Legends Mobile,
and Honkai: Star Rail, you start to understand why “mobile gamer”
stopped being an insult years ago. You’re playing legitimately competitive
matches, coordinating abilities in team fights, or min-maxing turn-based
teams with the same level of attention you’d bring to a console game. The
main difference is that your arena might be a coffee shop or the back seat
of a ride-share instead of your living room.
Then you reach AFK Journey, Apple’s 2024 winner, and the picture
clicks into place. Here’s a game that openly embraces the reality of adult
life: most people can’t grind for hours every night, but they still crave
deep systems and big fantasy worlds. AFK-style design says, “Go live your
life; we’ll keep your heroes busy.” When you log back in, you’re rewarded
not just for button presses, but for showing up consistently over weeks and
months.
The common thread across all of these experiences isn’t a specific genre or
visual style. It’s the feeling that each winner represents the best version
of what mobile gaming could be in that particular year. In the early 2010s,
that meant tightly designed, session-based games you could play in a spare
minute. In the 2020s, it increasingly means full-blown live
services, deep RPGs, and social worlds that just happen to live in your
pocket.
If you’re looking for a personal project, here’s a surprisingly fun one:
pick a year, download that year’s Apple Game of the Year, and commit to
playing it for a week. Don’t treat it like a quick install-and-delete. Let
yourself sink into its rhythms the way players did when it first came out.
By the time you hop from Plants vs. Zombies to
AFK Journey, you won’t just understand how far Apple’s hardware has
come you’ll feel how much design craft, art direction, and player
expectations have evolved along the way.
Conclusion: A Curated Backlog Worth Playing
Apple’s Game of the Year picks aren’t perfect no award list ever is but
as a curated snapshot of the best iPhone games from 2010 onward,
they’re incredibly valuable. They show when the industry leaned into indie
experiments, when live-service models took over, and when mobile gaming
finally shook off the “casual only” stereotype.
If you’re just discovering this list now, don’t stress about playing the
winners in order. Start with the kind of experience you’re craving today:
a clever puzzle (Threes!, Splitter Critters), a rich RPG
(Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, AFK Journey),
or a short, artsy gem (Donut County, Sky). However you
approach it, Apple’s Game of the Year timeline doubles as one of the best
mobile game recommendation lists you’re ever likely to find.
