The best iPad Pro games

The popular wilderness survival game now comes to iPad! You play as Wilson, an intrepid gentleman scientist who has awoken in a strange wilderness. Your goal? Utilize the environment and fend off dangerous creatures, then escape and find your way home. Starting with nothing, you’ll gather resources, craft items and structures, farm, fight monsters, and hunt for food. The dark, whimsical graphics and randomly generated new worlds mean you’ll never tire of starting over in Don’t Starve: Pocket Edition.

Bastion is one of those games that sticks with you long after the end credits roll. The hand-painted artwork, critically-acclaimed score of original music, and deep, fulfilling story make it a really memorable experience. It’s great to play on the iPad Pro thanks to touch controls created for iOS, and there are over 40 hand-painted environments to explore as you discover what happened during the Calamity, a catastrophe that decimated the world. Combat is fast-paced and action-packed as you take on new beasts roaming the planet, with a choice of more than 10 unique upgradeable weapons to wield, and varied difficulty settings are available to suit all levels of player and gameplay styles. You can play the start of the game for free — a great way to get a feel for it — after which it costs $5 to unlock the full game, and it’s definitely worth the price of entry.

Genshin Impact was arguably one of the most-played games of last year, and for good reason. For one, the game is gorgeous, with its JRPG-style art direction, but the game also has an addicting gameplay loop, loads of collectible fully-voiced characters, and a lengthy story with tons of side content.

Genshin Impact is available on every platform imaginable, but it’s particularly enjoyable on the iPad Pro. The larger and higher-quality screen lets the animation pop, and the beefed-up processors ensure the game always runs smoothly. Players can either use the touch controls or a controller.

If you haven’t given Genshin Impact a chance yet, you’re really missing out.

Fans of Magic the Gathering: Arena have been patiently waiting for a mobile release of the game for some time, and iOS and Mac users had to wait longer than their counterparts to get the game. But at long last, it is here, and it was well worth the wait.

Arena is a mobile version of the popular strategy collectible trading card game. The game has solid animations as well as lengthy and informative tutorials. These tutorials cover the basics of the game as well as the ins and outs of the various deck colors players can use. That makes Arena a great starting place for people new to the game. Combine that with digital card packs that line up with the physical releases and an active online community, and Arena is shaping up to be a game people will play for a long time to come.

League of Legends popularized the MOBA genre on PC and helped push esports into the mainstream. Now players can enjoy the game as their favorite champions in Wild Rift, a version of the game built from the ground up for mobile. While a lot of the controls have been streamlined for touch controls, Wild Rift is very much the game fans know and love. Players can unlock new champions and compete in ranked matches to test their skills against other top players.

The game is free to play, just like the PC version. Players can use in-app purchases to unlock champions faster and get unique skins, but it certainly isn’t a pay-to-win game.

Whether you’re a League veteran or new to the game, Wild Rift is a great time that is all the better on the iPad Pro.

With the power of the A12Z chip and now the M1 in the latest iPad Pros, ports of popular PC and console titles are becoming more common. Probably the most impressive of these is Divinity: Original Sin II. The Divinity series helped re-popularize the isometric RPG genre, with this sequel improving on the already impressive original game.

Players can explore a vast and open world with a branching narrative system. There is enough content here to make every playthrough a wholly different experience. The game only works on the latest iPad Pro models (2018 and newer), and as such, it can push the graphics to the very limit.

There are also multiple ways to play the game. Players can use touch controls, a Bluetooth controller, and even a mouse and keyboard. Although it’s by far the most expensive game on our list, Divinity: Original Sin II is a landmark game that’s a must-play, and having it on the iPad Pro will fundamentally change mobile gaming for a long time to come.

Apple Arcade may have been a bit barebones when it first rolled out, but Apple is steadily fleshing out its catalog with a list of great games. The Oregon Trail is a remake of the classic educational title, and it more or less maintains the same core mechanics but updates the game to be more lively and modern.

The game has a lovely and distinctive art direction, which makes the game’s perilous journeys across the American West all the more exciting to play. There’s also plenty of mini-games and content to keep players returning. It’s a treat for fans of the original or younger kids being introduced to the series for the first time.

There are plenty of racing games available for iOS, but there aren’t any quite like Grid Autosport. For one, the game has absolutely stunning visuals, with some of the most realistically rendered vehicles ever seen on a mobile platform. The game features 100 cars and 100 circuits, so there is an absolute ton of content for users to explore and master.

The game also has a robust amount of customization for the controls. Players can use tilt controls or touch inputs, and they can fine-tune everything to make the game precisely how they want it to be. If you’re looking for a realistic racing sim with some arcade-like fun, Grid Autosport is a must for you.

Travel deep into the lands of Buried Time, collecting forgotten knowledge, broken histories, and lost technologies along the way as you fight to cure your mysterious illness in Hyper Light Drifter. This award-winning action-adventure RPG has a nostalgic vibe reminiscent of 16-bit classics, with gorgeous art, a beautiful original soundtrack composed by Disasterpeace, and a vast world to explore. Easy to get into, difficult to master, the game lets the player figure things out as they go — which makes for a real challenge at times. You can play using the touchscreen or — as we’d recommend — use a controller. Either way, it’s an immersive experience that is hard to step away from once you start playing.

Take on the role of a starship captain, put a crew together, and carve a path through a war-torn galaxy full of opportunity and threat. This epic space RPG allows you to play as a pirate, merchant, explorer, smuggler, or something else entirely — there are 26 potential careers. You can fully customize your ship and crew — with over 350 upgrades to choose from — but they’ll change as you make decisions in the game. The open universe is there to be explored and there are all sorts of stories waiting to unfold. Will you ally with a specific faction, or try to walk your own path? This is a deep, addictive sci-fi game that you can really get your teeth into.

The newest version of this thrilling racing game, Asphalt 9: Legends takes you to over 80 tracks in real-world locations and puts you behind the wheel of countless sports cars. Legends starts you in Career mode and once you complete over 60 seasons and 800 races you can become a real legend. Also, for the first time in the Asphalt series, you can create your own private races in Club Race Mode. Challenge your friends to see who is truly the best. Recently added cars include the super exclusive Bugatti La Voiture Noire and Apollo IE — and you can now race in the Wild West in Nevada, with 12 new tracks to master. Like most games of this caliber, Legends takes a lot of storage, so, if your iPad is already pretty full, you may want to clear some room.

You’d think making a mobile game for a AAA franchise sounds like a cash grab (cough, cough, Final Fantasy), but Hitman Go does it right because it keeps the core of the game’s strategy alive. Hitman Go strips the expansive set pieces, convoluted plot, and action over strategy gameplay that’s plagued some recent Hitman games, and brings it down to a literal board game. Like a board game, you take one turn at a time as you try and sneak past guards and kill your target. Even with its minimalist approach, Hitman Go looks great, and it immerses you just like a big-budget Hitman game would. The game shares a lot of similarities with indie favorite Hotline Miami in the sense that you have to learn from your mistakes, so there’s a lot of replaying of the same level over and over again. That doesn’t sound fun to some, but it’s definitely rewarding to see your hard work pay off once you succeed.

Whether you’re a longtime fan of The Room series or a complete newbie to the franchise, The Room: Old Sins is a must-have for iPad Pro owners. In this first-person tangible journey with stimulating puzzles, you are commissioned to help solve the mystery of why the aspiring engineer and his wife suddenly disappeared and start by hunting down precious artifacts. Learn disturbing secrets and follow cryptic clues as you attempt to unravel the mysteries that lie within Waldegrave Manor. The striking 3D puzzle experience is paired with an eerie soundtrack and compelling sound effects. 

First advertised for Xbox One and Windows PC, Inside by Playdead is a frightful adventure game where a little boy stumbles across an unusual scene of people being packed into trucks. From the same developer as the 2010 game Limbo, both games feature spooky graphics, a ghoulish soundtrack, and efficacious yet straightforward animations. The prizewinner of more than 100 awards, Inside is an intriguing 2D puzzle sure to horrify and delight.