Apple Arcade — a CNET Editors’ Choice award pick — features hundreds of games to play for just $5 a month. The service offers familiar and classic games, as well as exclusive titles. You can find these games in the App Store, but they have paywalls and ads that might hinder your gaming experience. With an Apple Arcade subscription, you can play each title without paywalls or ads at no extra charge.
Here are the new games you can play in January.
Episode XOXO
Developer: Pocket Gems
Release date: Jan. 6
Episode XOXO is the sequel to Episode: Choose Your Story. It’s an interactive storytelling game where players can choose to enjoy a story full of drama, romance and adventure. The game is launching with five new stories, and there are plans to add more stories in future updates.
Illustrated
Developer: Border Leap
Release date: Jan. 13
Illustrated is a puzzle game whose gameplay blends jigsaws and word play. Each puzzle starts with an illustration that shows a concept sketch with the hidden words of the artist’s story behind the illustration. As you place puzzle pieces in their correct spot, the illustration begins to color itself in and the words of the story are revealed.
Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!
Developer: GAME FREAK
Release date: Jan. 20
Game Freak, the creator of the Pokemon game series, isn’t horsing around with its next Apple Arcade game. Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! was originally released as Pocket Card Jockey on the 3DS. The game is a combination of solitaire and horse racing where players clear cards with sequential numbers from the game as fast as they can. The more cards you clear, the better your horse’s mood is. Your horse’s mood helps your trusty steed charge energy during races. Once your horse’s energy is charged and you’re in the homestretch, your horse will have to use that energy to sprint to victory. Special cards also litter the raceway, and they provide your horse boosts and benefits, like leveling up and learning new skills. Off the track, you can breed your horses to produce foals with their parent’s abilities to be used in future races.
Squiggle Drop
Developer: Noodlecake
Release date: Jan. 27
If you like puzzle games with a little bit of physics, you should try Squiggle Drop. In this game, players have to solve puzzles by drawing a single shape. As players solve more puzzles, they can earn rewards and unlock buildings and upgrades to build their own Squiggletown.
Apple Arcade games getting January updates
- Angry Birds Reloaded
- Grindstone
- Jetpack Joyride 2
- Skate City
- Lego Star Wars: Castaways
- Zookeeper World
- WHAT THE GOLF?
- Subway Surfers Tag
- Warped Kart Racers
What did Apple Arcade release in December?
- Dead Cells
- JellyCar Worlds
- My Little Pony: Mane Merge