Various top game developers such as 2K, miHoYo and Mighty Bear spoke about their games running on iOS, with all the new ways to enjoy it thanks to various features on the iPhone 13 Pro as well as the iPad Pro, as well as how game development can change when developing for services like Apple Arcade.

Enjoying Genshin Impact on iOS

Yu Ling, Marketing and Business Development manager at miHoYo spoke about how all the ways to enjoy their most popular title, Genshin Impact, in the Apple ecosystem:

“Our players love playing Genshin Impact on iPhone and iPad. Until now, the quality of graphics on Genshin Impact can only be achieved on the latest gaming consoles. By taking full advantage of the incredible CPU, graphics and unified memory architecture of Apple silicone chips, as well as metal graphics library for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, the world of Teyvat looks unbelievably real”, she says.

“On iPhone 13 Pro and iPad Pro, the ProMotion play delivers up to 120Hz gameplay which is absolutely critical for ultra smooth and responsive gameplay. Genshin Impact supported this amazing feature right after”.

She also talked about how the iOS ecosystem promotes Genshin Impact. By being featured on the store, they could promote the newest events, which they said helps drive more players into the game. On top of that, fans can further enjoy the game’s world with its soundtrack, that’s available in Dolby Atmos on Apple Music.

Bringing Sports To Apple Arcade With NBA 2K Arcade Edition

Mike Escudero, Director of Parnerships at 2K who worked on NBA 2K Arcade Edition, said they were also planning to make full use of the improved refresh rate on Apple’s newest lineup of devices.

“When Cat Daddy games learned that the new iPhone and iPad pro models would support faster refresh rates through Apple’s ProMotion technology, we saw that the opportunity to give the players a better and more immersive experience in the game”, he said.

Now, there are marked differences between the NBA 2K console games, NBA 2K Mobile and most recently, NBA 2K Arcade Edition.

“Arcade is a different sort of system altogether, its subscription based, so I think thats one of the biggest changes that we made”, he says.

“You pay for the subscription and then you can play the game as much as you want, in that way it’s very different from NBA 2K mobile which is a traditional mobile game. I think that’s one of the biggest considerations”, Mike continues.

“NBA 2K Arcade Edition is certainly closer to the console version of the game. So if you’re familiar with that you’ll pick up the arcade edition and see the similarities there”.

Disney Melee Mania Letting You Compete With Your Favorite Characters

Abel Tan from Mighty Bear Games also spoke about their newly-announced project, Disney Melee Mania, and how choosing to release it on Apple Arcade affects how you’ll unlock your Disney Characters.

“Unlike other MOBAs on the store, we don’t have in app monetization”, he says.

“Players will be able to collect champion fragments. We’ll give players a pool of these fragments at the start”, Abel continues. ” Just by playing games and winning matches and completing missions you’ll be able to collect and piece together  champion fragments and unlock the champions. After unlocking these characters as well you can use these fragments to level up the character and progress the character that way”.

He also took some time to talk about choosing the roster for Melee Mania- how they wanted to make sure to include lesser known Disney and Pixar characters too.

“There’s definitely a few characters that we tried to get in. Our CEO really likes Bing Bong, it was his favorite character that he felt was underrepresented in terms of merch. We felt we really wanted to make sure he got in”, Abel says.

“Also Timon was very easy for us to add in, the whole team really loved Timon and when we did the concept art and put him in the game we know we made the right decision because he’s just a fantastic personality to put in”, he continues. “The different people on the team have different favorites, and I think we landed on a solid launch lineup. We have a couple characters in the pipeline that we’re excited for as well”.