Apple Arcade 'Let the Games Begin' trailer released to YouTube
Apple has released a new video to their YouTube highlighting some upcoming titles to Apple Arcade, showing off a wide variety of games from both big name and indie developers.
The video is a 100-second promo of some of the titles we can expect to show up on Apple Arcades' launch day. Titles showcased include many that we've already seen highlighted elsewhere.
Hot Lava by Klei Entertainment, a competitive platformer that reimagines the childhood game "the floor is lava." Players will dash through levels in an attempt to complete objectives before others.
Earth Knight by Cleaversoft is a hand-painted, randomly generated side scrolling runner. Every time a player launches the game, they'll be greeted with a new experience.
Skate City by Snowman is a fresh take on the skating genre. Players can pull off complex stunts with intuitive tapping and swiping gestures
Jenny LeClue - Detectivu by Mografi is a narrative-driven game where players control both Jenny, the titular character, as well as a second main character -- the author writing about Jenny's adventures.
Lego Brawls by LEGO allows up to 12 friends to come together to create, customize, collaborate, and brawl together in classic Lego style. Lego Brawls will also allow players to turn their Apple TV into a scoreboard for everyone who is playing.
Sayonara: Wild Hearts by Annapurna is a music-heavy game designed to make players feel as though they're playing in a music video. Every stage is a different song and incorporates elements of both endless runners and rhythm-based games.
Sonic Racing by SEGA, Pac-Man Party Royale by Bandai Namco Entertainment, and Frogger in Toy Town by Konami bring beloved characters to Apple Arcade and into the hands of players everywhere.
Other titles shown in the video include Shinsekai: Into the Depths, Cricket Through the Ages, ShockRods, Redout: Space Assault, Super Impossible Road, Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm, and several others.
The video is a 100-second promo of some of the titles we can expect to show up on Apple Arcades' launch day. Titles showcased include many that we've already seen highlighted elsewhere.
Hot Lava by Klei Entertainment, a competitive platformer that reimagines the childhood game "the floor is lava." Players will dash through levels in an attempt to complete objectives before others.
Earth Knight by Cleaversoft is a hand-painted, randomly generated side scrolling runner. Every time a player launches the game, they'll be greeted with a new experience.
Skate City by Snowman is a fresh take on the skating genre. Players can pull off complex stunts with intuitive tapping and swiping gestures
Jenny LeClue - Detectivu by Mografi is a narrative-driven game where players control both Jenny, the titular character, as well as a second main character -- the author writing about Jenny's adventures.
Lego Brawls by LEGO allows up to 12 friends to come together to create, customize, collaborate, and brawl together in classic Lego style. Lego Brawls will also allow players to turn their Apple TV into a scoreboard for everyone who is playing.
Sayonara: Wild Hearts by Annapurna is a music-heavy game designed to make players feel as though they're playing in a music video. Every stage is a different song and incorporates elements of both endless runners and rhythm-based games.
Sonic Racing by SEGA, Pac-Man Party Royale by Bandai Namco Entertainment, and Frogger in Toy Town by Konami bring beloved characters to Apple Arcade and into the hands of players everywhere.
Other titles shown in the video include Shinsekai: Into the Depths, Cricket Through the Ages, ShockRods, Redout: Space Assault, Super Impossible Road, Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm, and several others.
Comments
I’m sure people will give it a try at 5$ but the content (I’ve seen) is directed at children...PG13 and under.
Making something PG13 does not mean it's "directed at children". It means it's "not directed at sociopaths who just want to kill". Most of what Apple is going to do, will be "family friendly", but that doesn't mean it's "just for kids".
Civilization is a great game, but I doubt Apple is sitting around telling developers,"Oh! You know what? Can you make a XXX clone? Thanks!"
Quite a few of these games seem to replace the user-created games found of Roblox. My kids are going to snap these up in a hurry!
I myself just can't wait to take a dive into Apple Arcade.
This makes the initial demographic pretty clear: kids and their parents, which represents the largest number of individual players: something that will help service Apple-hardware sales. What appears to be absent are equivalents to AAA+ titles, and this isn't surprising. That's a different business model, and it's not something that can be created overnight, nor do I think a cynical online audience would give Apple much faith in their ability to sponsor such a title right out of the gate. That said I'm sure plenty of "gamers" will still give Arcade a try, since they're also not against casual gaming.
I am curious to see if Apple will create stickiness with long-play titles that emulate the most popular subscription games available - but I recognise that this is a big investment and Apple would want exclusivity on such an item, which would be very unlikely.
Speaking of exclusivity, I notice quite a few of the games will be available on other platforms, even ones that I consider relatively basic games. The advantage of Arcade thus seems to be two-pronged for Apple: Firstly encouraging and tooling-up developers to be able to create titles for both macOS and the iOS-based platforms, but also creating a service with some level of exclusivity. Since not all titles need to be exclusive on the store to create stickiness.
Altogether, other than financial assistance, I imagine Apple is lending a hand to these developers in terms of guidance and engineering assistance - especially as all titles appear to have some common features, such as iCloud progress saving.