The Most Impressive Console and PC Ports Available on Mobile in 2022
We are increasingly witnessing a trend towards handheld PC and “console-grade” gaming. Nowhere is that more apparent than with the arrival of Valve’s first ever “true” games console, the Steam Deck. While this device shares some visual similarities with the Nintendo Switch, it is in fact a full handheld PC running SteamOS, the company’s custom Linux distro. Yet PC and classic console games are no stranger to the handheld form-factor, as they have increasingly been ported to Android and iOS tablets and smartphones over the past few years. This underlines the fact that, as a platform, smartphones have developed a lot since their modern inception with the first iPhone back in 2007.
Smartphones Now Represent a Mature Gaming Platform
Mobile gamers can now just fire up a cloud gaming service like Xbox Cloud Gaming and dive into a Triple ‘A’ title like Halo: Infinite. The reality is no other platform today is able to offer a comparable range of experiences. Why is this? The answer is multi-faceted. For one, smartphone ownership among the global population now sits at around 83%. This makes it by far the largest gaming market in the world, and this has led to many developers who previously had the luxury of dismissing the platform now finding themselves eager to establish a presence on iOS and Android. People’s estimation of what a smartphone game looks like has changed over time, especially because of the arrival of dedicated gaming phones, and the growth of mobile esports.
Smartphone hardware has also been growing incrementally more powerful and efficient with each generation, and is now estimated to be slightly superior to the 7th generation of home consoles, as exemplified by the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. This has increasingly begun to open up the ability to port titles from home consoles and PCs onto mobile with increasing ease. Some newer titles, like Genshin Impact, even launched with the ability to cross-save your games across its mobile and PC versions. Below we’re going to take at some of the most impressive ports of console and PC games out there today in 2022.
Divinity II: Original Sin
Widely considered to be not only one of the best PC games, but one of the best games ever made across any platform, the fact that this compelling RPG adventure is now available on mobile is mind-blowing from a technical standpoint. With over 100 hours of gameplay story, dozens of side-quests and characters, and hundreds of features and locations to discover, there’s no game as complete or highly-rated available on mobile in 2022.
Genshin Impact
Taking more than a little influence from Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild, this anime open-world adventure game is among the most popular free-2-play titles in the world today. With graphics that push the limits of present mobile hardware, it’s also one of the best looking out there.
GRID Autosport
CodeMasters’ GRID games are a beloved family of “sim-cade” racing titles. With great customization features, tuning, many real-world tracks, and a huge range of car classes from F1 to street-racers, there are few racing games as comprehensive out there across any platform today.
ARK: Survival Evolved
Arguably the most graphically intensive title currently playable on mobile, ARK: Survival Evolved is a sandbox survival game with a Jurassic Park twist. But be warned, even the most powerful device may notice some frame-rate drops when pushing the limits of this impressive PC port.
Alien: Isolation
One of the stand-out games of 2014, Alien: Isolation makes its way to mobile platforms to deliver all the spine-tingling chills of its console counterpart. While many games drawing on the Alien franchise tend to focus on the sequel Aliens, with its space-marines and ferocious combat, Isolation aims to recapture the tension and horror of the 1979 original, something it accomplishes to great effect.
