This Week in Mobile Games

Seeking Summer Smartphone Succor

This week's This Week in Mobile Games is being sponsored again by our friends at Grand Summoners!

Find out more about their current collaboration with Solo Leveling further down in this week's column!

Hello, and welcome once again to another installment of the column! Despite the rainy season soon approaching over here, the summer is still as hot as ever. All the more reason to hide indoors and watch the game industry make it rain new game announcements and previews, thanks to the yearly barrage of game showcase events, headed by Keigh3, the Summer Game Fest.

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Mobile Was Missing in Action At The Summer Game Fest (And That's Fine)

I've spoken at length before about mobile games of late entering their "triple-A" era, as higher-end hardware and changing market conditions allow expensively produced games once exclusive to PCs and dedicated game consoles to run on peoples' phones and tablets—dwturning them into extensions of the existing PC/console market for publishers of those types of games, while simultaneously opening up the PC and console markets to the gameplay types (and business models) once seen as the province of mobile-first development. 

That said, the mobile market is still a different beast, and those native to it reach their audiences in different ways. One need only look at the conspicuous absence of mobile-first news at the Summer Game Fest and similar showcases, where, despite many exciting announcements for the home-bound gamer that Jean-Karlo ably summarized, I counted the number of notable mobile-related announcements on one hand. And that's including multiplatform games like Wuthering Waves and Fortnite!

There could be any number of reasons for this. Rumor has it that the Summer Game Fest team doesn't make a big point of seeking out mobile-exclusive titles to feature, preferring appealing indies and splashy marquee triple-A fare. I've no way to verify that particular bit of hearsay, but I'd wager the reality is more pragmatic than any allegations of animus on Keighley's part. Despite an unprecedented level of overlap in audiences these days, mobile games are still a distinct market, with their own communications needs. The same factors that make mobile games surprisingly hard to cover for the "mainstream" games press and attendant PR apparatus, despite the vast size of the audience, also make the majority of mobile game players unlikely to pay too much attention to the SGF (though The Game Awards tend to break through, particularly when a splashy new release, as Umamusume wins).

And that's fine! Just as not every game needs to be for everyone, not every game showcase is for every audience. And considering the types of vocal capital-G Gamers that pay a lot of attention to the likes of SGF and its surroundings, one can't be sure that a mobile-first title would even meet a friendly reception outside the glitziest multiplatform 3D gacha titles (your HoYoVerse games and such). Mobile game makers typically reach their audiences where they are, such as on App Store pages, via advertising, dedicated communities, and even at other industry events focused outside the splashy triple-A console and PC spectrum, like MAU Vegas, and increasingly, Asia-centered events like G-Star, ChinaJoy, and others.

But enough about the market, let's see what mobile-centric announcements did make it into the summer storm of news!

Spirit Crossing Expands its Public Playtest From Mobile to PC via Steam

Despite being seen as in decline compared to more session-based live service titles on PC and consoles, MMORPGs are seeing a resurgence in popularity on mobile devices. From revivals of old classics like Ragnarok Online to splashy new multiplatform releases like Where Winds Meet, Infinity Nikki, and even the mobile port of Final Fantasy XIV, the proliferation of mobile data connections and demand for deeper gameplay among mobile-first players has fueled the rise. Even Netflix has gotten into it by helping Spry Fox launch its life-sim MMO Spirit Crossing into early access on Android and iOS. Now PC gamers can also give the game a try via Steam.

Spirit Crossing puts players in the warm winter wear of the inhabitants of an idyllic fantasy mountain village. But rather than slaughter woodland creatures and bandits for jollies and experience points in the traditional MMORPG fashion, Spirit Crossing plays things chill, encouraging group activities like collective fishing, building, resource-gathering, and even sing-alongs and raves, alongside cuddly NPC spirits.

One Piece: Grand Gourmet Gets Sanji Back in the Kitchen

There weren't a ton of licensed anime games making an appearance at the showcases, but one in particular stood out: One Piece: Grand Gourmet. Rather than a beat-em-up or fighting game, the next upcoming One Piece-branded video game outing is a cutesy pixel art restaurant sim starring Sanji and the Straw Hat crew. 

The game casts you as a rookie kitchen crewmate at "Baratie Number Two," a Sanji-run branch of the famous floating restaurant. In practice, it plays out like any number of touch-driven Tycoon-likes, but stuffed to the gills with fun renditions of One Piece characters and decor. I quite like the concept, I must say, if mainly because I'm just happy to see a One Piece game that's not attempting to revisit the Alabasta arc again. 

Zenless Zone Zero Goes Stratospheric in its 3rd Season on June 17

When you want to avoid the suburban sprawl, the best direction to build is up. Urban planners know this, and so does HoYoVerse, it seems, judging by the upcoming 3rd season of Zenless Zone Zero, titled A Sleepwalker's Confession. 

Just as the version 2.0 update expanded the environs of New Eridu to include the Cantonese-inspired Waifei Peninsula area, version 3 debuts the skyborne island of Rosecaelifer, which seems to take its visual and environmental cues from western metropoles, particularly London, filtered through ZZZ's contemporary urban aesthetic. 

The update promises increasingly personal involvement by sibling player avatars Belle and Wise, a new Wind element to play with, as well as a free playable character: Pyrois, a playable faceless armored character that behaves a lot like a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Stand for Belle or Wise. Playing through the version 3.0 storyline will add them to the roster, with future updates gifting Pyrois' Mindscape unlocks and unique W-Engine. Besides Pyrois, the Wind agent Velina (complete with giant fan) will be available via the gacha banner, along with her big-hatted companion Norma.

Perhaps it's fate that the vaguely steampunk-esque new territory also accompanies ZZZ's debut on Steam. A Steam outing is an increasingly popular step to take for gacha games on PC. Access to the contingent of PC gamers that insist on every game being on Steam seems worth surrendering a cut of the microtransaction revenue to Valve (though Google, Apple, and Epic all take their own slices, it should be said). 

Hidden Folks 2 Lets You Find More Folks in 2027

If there's any game genre that seems tailor-made for a particular class of hardware, it's the hidden object game. Nowhere is that genre more at home in video game form than it is on a nearby tablet or phone. Like the Where's Waldo books before them, hidden object games are best when you can spot what you're looking for and point at it with your meaty digits. Luckily, the folks at, uh, Hidden Folks understand that, and have announced the sequel to 2017's Hidden Folks (helpfully titled Hidden Folks 2) for mobile platforms as well as PC. The game is due out in 2027.

I always liked Hidden Folks. Alongside Fate/Grand Order, Hidden Folks was one of the first games I played on my first Android phone after switching from an Apple device, and its stark black-and-white hand-drawn style was immediately appealing amid the noise and excess of the gacha games I was getting used to. It's even something of a departure from the typical hidden object title thanks to its focus on people, whimsical animations, and voice-provided sound effects. In its way, it carries the same artistic energy as Simogo's mobile output, helping underline that not every game out there is some kind of heavily monetized service game that feels like an ethical compromise to enjoy.

Pokemon Go Players May Have Helped Program Military Drones With Their Data

Speaking of possible ethical compromises, this one is probably one to file under "unforeseen consequences". New reports related to the activities of Niantic Spatial (the tech company that spun out of Pokemon Go developer Niantic to focus on AI development and navigation tech) suggest that the images and location data provided by Pokemon Go players in their game activities may have helped build navigation systems being developed for use with drones operating on the battlefield. 

The story stems from the 2026 Defense Geospatial Intelligence conference, where Niantic Spatial discussed its partnership with another spatial intelligence company, Vantor (which has contracts across the US military and intelligence apparatus), to develop a navigation system that would help flying and ground-based drones navigate in environments where Global Positioning System (GPS) access is being jammed or otherwise rendered unreliable. 

Reported on in the Dutch publication Trouw and translated by DroneXL's Haye Kesteloo, the story highlighted the use of a camera-based "visual positioning" model trained using a 3D map constructed from scans of real terrain. Those scans were obtained by Niantic Spiral from Pokémon Go players when they took photos and videos of "Pokestops," real-world locations, in exchange for in-game rewards. The visual positioning model can then match live-camera footage to preloaded terrain maps, making autonomous drones more capable of navigating complex environments like combat zones or areas being subjected to electronic warfare tools. The Truow report says that players provided around 30 billion environmental scans from all over the world to feed Niantic Spatial's map creation.

For its part, Vantor has denied that it has access to current Pokémon Go player data. In a statement to Kotaku, Niantic Spatial also said that scans and data were not shared with Vantor as part of its partnership, which is still in "very early stages," and emphasized that the ground scans (such as those from Pokemon Go players) were just one component of the training data for the company's models (which are the real product). Further, it said that Pokémon Go itself is not sharing data with Niantic Spiral, since Scopely now owns and operates the game.

In other words, a current player of Pokémon Go shouldn't worry about their data being hoovered up to feed a missile-loaded drone somewhere. But it is a chilling reminder that the terms of service many agree to without reading thoroughly can enable unanticipated uses of the data one provides to play an otherwise innocuous game about catching Pikachu in the real world.

The Amazing Digital Circus Gets Dragooned Onto the Battle Bus for a Fortnite Crossover

You might wonder if the tremendously popular Australian indie animated series The Amazing Digital Circus really qualifies for reporting here on the Anime News Network, but for kicks, I'm going to go with the strict definition of "Anime" as "just the Japanese word for animation in general." I do this because I think the trailer for it is extremely funny.

Besides the clearly indicated additions of Pomni (now with playable-length limbs), Jax, and the pickaxe-ified form of Zooble to Fortnite's ever-expanding skin library, the TADC item pack also includes Gummigoo and Ribbit back bling items, another pickaxe based on Bubble, an emote and wrap based on Abstractions, and even themed instruments for the game's music mode.

It's a pretty clever introduction, all things considered, and only appropriate considering the show itself is already rendered in Fortnite's UE5 game engine (much like that Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance mini-series). I haven't seen much of TADC myself, but it's still amazing to see a show begin as a scrappy independent upstart on YouTube grow so tremendously beloved (for better and for worse, in light of some of the toxic fandom stories that have emerged over the years) that its finale was shown in theaters, and its characters featured in one of the world's most popular games.

Let's close out today's column with a few more news bits:

• Monster-collecting free-to-play game Aniimo is set for a Q3 2026 release, and developer Pawprint Interactive has opened applications for the game's next round of closed beta testing. Not unlike the recently released Mongil: Star Dive, Aniimo looks like a Pokemon-adjacent title sporting flashy graphics, open-world environments, and a gimmick where the player appears to "possess" their creature to use its powers.
•  Cozy social game Sky: Children of the Light is launching a new themed experience based on the life and work of legendary artist Vincent Van Gogh on July 17th. The experience will feature some of Van Gogh's most famous works rendered in Sky's style, with explorable environments and plenty of edu-taining content.
• After an aborted launch in February 2026, gacha RPG Star Sailors will launch globally on June 30th, with pre-registration open on Google Play and the Apple App Store. Publisher Com2uS announced that feedback from participants in the game's closed beta and final tests has been incorporated in recent months, and promises a smoother launch.

That's it from me for this week! Be good to one another, and make wishlists judiciously as you sort through the summer game announcement hype. I'll see you soon!