Apple Arcade is here, and you can play some of the subscription service’s many games with select models of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers as well as Mfi (Made for iOS) controllers!
During Apple Arcade’s announcement, though, Apple gave the impression that all Apple Arcade games would work with gamepads (in part because the service will eventually also come to macOS and tvOS), but it turns out that’s not entirely true. Some games have interfaces solely designed for touchscreens—at least on iPhone and iPad.
Updated 3/13/20: Added Roundguard to the list of supported games.
How to see if a game has controller support
Apple technically tells you if a game supports controllers or not. If you’re on the game’s landing page, look for the Controller icon under the Get link. But there are many, many others that don’t—such as Enter the Gungeon—and we’re still testing them to find the exceptions. In some, such as Tint, you can use the controller on the game’s start menu on the iPad, but you can’t use it to actually play. In Outlanders, you can use a controller to navigate around the map, but you can’t interact with anything. In cases such as those, we do not count the game as having controller support.
In other cases, such as Sonic Racing and Cricket Through the Ages, you can apparently play with a controller on the iPad, but not the iPhone.
Your mileage may vary depending on which controller you use. Old MFi controllers like those from SteelSeries, for instance, don’t always support the “L3” and “R3” buttons that activate when you click in on the thumbsticks and so don’t have the versatility of the Xbox and PS4 models. In many cases, the games recognized that we were using a DualShock 4 and showed PlayStation inputs on the prompts.
Every Apple Arcade game that supports controllers
Note: Games that aren’t listed in the App Store as having controller support, but still seem to be playable with controllers, are marked with an asterisk.
We’ll keep this list updated as we learn about more games with controller support.
- Agent Intercept
- Atone: Heart of the Elder Tree*
- Ballistic Baseball*
- Big Time Sports*
- Bleak Sword*
- The Bradwell Conspiracy*
- Butter Royale*
- Cardpocalypse*
- Charrua Soccer*
- ChuChu Rocket! Universe*
- Cricket Through the Ages* (iPad only)
- Crossy Road Castle*
- Dead End Job*
- Decoherence*
- Discolored
- Dodo Peak
- Don’t Bug Me!*
- Doomsday Vault
- Down in Bermuda
- Dread Nautical*
- EarthNight*
- Exit the Gungeon*
- Explottens
- Fallen Knight*
- Fledgling Heroes*
- Frogger in Toy Town*
- The Get Out Kids*
- Grindstone*
- Guildlings
- Hexaflip*
- Hogwash
- Hot Lava
- INMOST*
- HyperBrawl Tournament*
- Jenny LeClue—Detectivu*
- Jumper Jon*
- King’s League II
- Kings of the Castle
- LEGO Brawls*
- LEGO Builder’s Journey*
- Lifelike: Chapter One*
- Lifeslide*
- Loud House: Outta Control*
- Manifold Garden*
- Marble It Up: Mayhem!
- Mind Symphony*
- Monomals*
- The Mosaic*
- Murder Mystery Machine*
- Mutazione
- Neo Cab*
- Nightmare Farm
- No Way Home*
- Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm
- Operator 41*
- Overland*
- Over the Alps* (It’s wonky, though.)
- Pac-Man Party Royale*
- Painty Mob*
- Pilgrims
- Pinball Wizard*
- Projection*
- Punch Planet*
- Rayman Mini*
- Red Reign
- Redout: Space Assault
- Rosie’s Reality*
- Roundguard*
- Sayonara: Wild Hearts*
- Secret Oops!* (It plays better with touch controls, though.)
- Shantae and the Seven Sirens*
- Shinsekai: Into the Depths*
- ShockRods*
- Skate City*
- Sneaky Sasquatch*
- Sociable Soccer*
- Sonic Racing* (iPad only)
- Spaceland
- Speed Demons* (iPad only)
- Spelldrifter*
- Spidersaurs*
- Star Fetched*
- Stela
- Stellar Commanders*
- Stranded Sails*
- Super Impossible Road*
- Super Mega Mini Party*
- Tangle Tower*
- Things That Go Bump
- Towaga: Among Shadows*
- UFO on Tape: First Contact*
- Ultimate Rivals: The Rink*
- Unleash the Light*
- Various Daylife*
- Way of the Turtle*
- Word Laces*
- What the Golf?*
- Yaga: The Roleplaying Folktale*