The Best Story Games For Android And iPhone

Mobile gaming has boomed in recent years, seeing a host of incredible indie games, along with console favorites, move from the big screen to the portable. With such an array of games to choose from, whether it be solving difficult puzzles or setting foot inside a digital open world, it seems the mobile gaming market really does have something for everyone.

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As mobile memory has increased, the library of games has only grown bigger and better, so for those looking for a story to get well and truly lost in, here are some of the best storylines within mobile gaming — all available to play right now.

Updated on December 14, 2024, by PJ Molloy: There’s no better way to pass a winter’s day than snuggling up with a good story. We’ve updated the list with new recommendations that will keep you engaged while you wait for it to warm up outside.

To The Moon

A Gorgeous Pixel RPG

To the Moon

Systems

Platform(s)

Switch

Released

November 1, 2011

Developer(s)

Freebird Games

Publisher(s)

X.D. Network

ESRB

t

Often considered a must-play RPG, To the Moon tells a beautiful, time-bending story about Dr. Rosalene and Dr. Watts, who fulfill their patients’ dying wishes by altering their memories to implant experiences they never got to have. For Johnny, his only regret is never going to the moon.

The doctors must travel through Johnny’s past to figure out the mysterious motive behind his last wish. The result is a stunning journey about loss, heartbreak, and broken dreams. It’s a short game but definitely a tear-jerker.

Simulacra

An Immersive Missing Persons Mystery

Simulacra is a chilling mystery that all puzzle game fans should try. After finding a mysterious phone on your doorstep, you scroll through the contents to discover its owner, Anna, is missing. The goal is to search through photos, emails, and text messages until you piece together the shocking truth behind her disappearance.

This game is a rare example of the mobile version being better than its PC counterpart. It genuinely feels like you’re going through someone’s phone, creating a unique sense of immersion seldom found in other detective games. Gripping, twist-heavy, and incredibly atmospheric, Simulacra will stick with you long after you stop playing.

The Letter

A Frightening Horror Visual Novel Inspired By The Ring

The Letter is a scary visual novel inspired by Japanese horror films like The Ring. Seven people enter the haunted Ermengarde Mansion, where they’re relentlessly pursued by a ghost after discovering a centuries-old letter written in blood. The perspective switches between each character as they desperately try to break the curse.

On top of its blood-curdling frights, The Letter excels due to its thrilling, non-linear story, three-dimensional characters, and choice-based gameplay. Every decision you make matters, and whether the characters live or die is entirely in your hands. Thanks to the game’s many branching paths, you can replay it several times and get a different outcome.

Ghost Trick

Solve Your Own Murder In A Supernatural Whodunit

Written by the creator of Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick is a supernatural puzzle game with a fascinating murder mystery. Take control of Sissel, a spirit who has until sunrise to solve his own murder. Thanks to your ghostly powers, you can possess inanimate objects and rewind time to solve head-scratching puzzles, each bringing you closer to your killer.

Despite its macabre premise, Ghost Trick is brimming with quirky characters and silly humor. At its core, however, is an exhilarating whodunit with plenty of shocking twists that’ll keep you glued to your screen.

Death Stranding Director’s Cut

Explore A Post-Apocalyptic World Created By Hideo Kojima

You don’t need a PS5 or an expensive gaming PC to play the director’s cut of Death Stranding. The iPhone 15 Pro is capable of running this post-apocalyptic delivery game with cutting-edge graphics. Not even Hideo Kojima could’ve predicted this, and he’s predicted a lot of things in his games that came true.

Death Stranding has one of the most original and inventive narratives and mechanics you’ll find in the adventure game genre, filled with so much lore and strange characters that it’s all often hard to grasp. Still, it’ll leave you in awe. It’s also a game that features an all-star Hollywood cast and cameos from Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn.

Transistor

An Epic Action RPG From The Creators Of Hades

Transistor is a beautiful game by the developers behind Hades. Before Hades and Zagreus, though, there was Transistor and Red. In this game, you play as Red, making your way through Cloudbank, where you must defeat robots.

Rather than just diving into battle, Transistor involves a unique system that lets you essentially pause battles to plan out your attacks. Then, once it’s been perfected, you can unpause and execute your attacks. Aside from great gameplay, the story of Transistor is phenomenal.

Resident Evil 4 Remake

A Legendary Survival Horror Game

You’d think the iPhone 15 would start with older and smaller Resident Evil games like Resident Evil 2 or 3. However, Capcom went right for Resident Evil 4, bringing Leon, Ashley, Ada, Luis, and the lovely Los Iluminados villagers and bosses from rural Spain to iOS. Now, everyone gets to experience this terrifying horror game.​​​​​

Leon must once again save the president’s daughter in a reimagined story that contains some of the classic humorous moments along with some new twists. The remake is hauntingly gorgeous from the very start, with graphics, cutscenes, and gameplay miles better than its 2005 predecessor.

Resident Evil Village

Delve Into A Spooky Gothic Castle In This Horror Gem

While Resident Evil 7: Biohazard may have the more terrifying atmosphere with the Baker House of Horrors, Resident Evil Village has an overall more in-depth story that answers a lot of the questions from the first Ethan Winters chapter. If Resident Evil 4 was first-person and set in a more snowy Lycan-infested European village, this would be that game.

The ominous Mother Miranda controls her Cadou experiments and has Ethan’s daughter Rose. They make up the main Lords, or bosses, that Ethan will have to get through to save his child, each within their own section of the map. It’s a harrowing and Gothic adventure, with Chris Redfield also there with you for the ride.

Max Payne

A Classic Noir Thriller With An Exciting Story

Max Payne is one of the earliest games developed by Remedy Entertainment, and you can play it on mobile. Gameplay-wise, this game is most famous for the John Woo bullet dodge-bullet time shootouts that inspired it.

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Story-wise, it’s perfect for a small-screen mobile setting, as it’s a mix of detective noir and graphic novel-style storytelling, with the dialogue and character narration cutscenes presented as comic panels. The first game follows the titular detective on the run in a gritty, action-packed adventure where Max will have to fight mobsters in order to clear his name.

Spiritfarer Netflix Edition

A Heart-Wrenching Journey Through The Afterlife

A heartwarming management sim with a gorgeous hand-drawn art style and a cozy story you can indulge yourself in from the comfort of your couch is what you’ll come to love about Spiritfarer. As Stella, your goal is to keep making upgrades to your boat while ensuring your animal spirit passengers are comforted on their way to the afterlife, which will be through the Everdoor.

You can fish, cook, platform, and even glide with the help of Stella’s star-shaped hat. The only feature missing in the mobile version is the co-op option for another player to become Stella’s pet cat, Daffodil, which would’ve made for another great cat game to play on mobile.

Immortality

Solve A Mystery In This Thrilling FMV Adventure

Immortality is an FMV game from Sam Barlow, creator and writer of interactive movie games like Her Story and Telling Lies. The game is presented through a collage of video clips compiled from fictional behind-the-scenes footage, TV interviews, and actual movie scenes, which you must comb through to unravel a sinister mystery surrounding lead actress Marissa Marcel.

You’ll be able to see the entirety of these three films once all the footage is collected (by clicking on various items in the current scene and jumping to the next). But, when you rewind the footage, unexplainable and disturbing phenomena occur, and Marissa is not who she seems.

Chrono Trigger

A Timeless JRPG

Chrono Trigger is an absolute classic, originally launching back in 1995 for the SNES. If you don’t have this console though, you can experience this JRPG right from your phone. Rather than trimming down the game to fit on a phone, the mobile version of Chrono Trigger still delivers all the content to you.

Overall, this is a great port to play if you’ve always wanted to get into Chrono Trigger. Afterward, you can play through the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, which are other excellent RPGs by Square Enix.

The Walking Dead

Choose Your Own Path In This Chilling Zombie Story

Unsurprisingly viewed as one of the best zombie games ever created, Telltale’s The Walking Dead puts you in the middle of an all-out zombie apocalypse as the recently arrested Lee, a man trying to survive the undead infestation alone before coming across a young girl named Clementine alone in her house.

Being a game where you’re constantly surrounded by flesh-eating zombies, it’s unsurprising to learn that no one in this game is safe and that your actions have very real consequences. So, get ready to kill some zombies, make some difficult decisions, and end up sobbing and throwing your phone across the room, especially after that horrendous cliffhanger ending.

Life Is Strange

A Time-Bending Mystery Where Your Choices Matter

The undisputed queen of your choices mattering in the gameplay, Life is Strange has you play as photography student Max Caulfield, who realizes she possesses a time-reversing superpower after saving her ex-best friend Chloe from being shot. From here, Max decides to put her powers to the test by helping Chloe locate a missing girl named Rachel Amber.

It’s a beautiful game with a simple message and perfectly challenges you with some of the toughest decision-making in gaming history. In a world of action-packed games and dark, twisted narratives, it’s refreshing to see a game as simple and beautiful as Life is Strange continue to make an impact on the gaming industry.

Oxenfree: Netflix Edition

A Scary Narrative-Based Adventure

If you’re looking for something spooky, Oxenfree explores that classic horror trope of a bunch of unruly teenagers wanting to make the most of those last summer months, all for everything to go horribly, horribly wrong.

After the group accidentally opens a ghost rift at an overnight beach party on an old military island, the night takes a supernatural turn. Playing as Alex, you must unravel the island’s multiple mysteries, aware that how you play and the choices you make could have a more lasting impression on the story’s outcome and the fate of your friends than you might think.

Alien: Isolation

A Terrifying Sci-Fi Survival Horror

You won’t find a more story-driven and frightening horror experience on iOS or Android than Alien: Isolation. It may not feel as immersive as the original game on a console or PC, but its story is arguably as good as any Alien movie, if not better.

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Alien: Isolation follows Amanda Ripley on a quest to find answers as to where her mother, Ellen Ripley, is. The flight recorder from the Nostromo ended up at Sevastopol Station, where Amanda is headed. But that’s not the only thing that awaits her, as she has a Xenomorph chasing her around the station and rogue Synthetic androids on the attack.

Thimbleweed Park

Explore A Bizarre Town With A Dark Secret

If you’re looking for a story like Twin Peaks featuring a small town with a murder mystery and a quirky cast of characters but with incredible 2D pixel graphics, Thimbleweed Park is sure to glue you to your screen. This game is a point-and-click adventure where you can play five different characters intertwined in the mystery.

You have federal agents named Angela Ray and Antonio Reyes, an aspiring video game developer Dolores Edmund, her father’s ghost, and a clown character called Ransome the Clown, who has a lot of comedic moments with his constant swearing getting purposefully bleeped out. And there’s some really terrific voice acting to go along with the atmosphere and story.

Genshin Impact

An Iconic Fantasy Action RPG

Genshin Impact is incredibly popular, but it’s for a good reason. This mobile gacha game takes you Teyvat, where you can play various unique characters. Along the way, there are a variety of regions and towns that you can explore, with each one having a story to be told.

In general, Genshin Impact receives frequent updates, which is perfect if you want to follow along with the story in real time. The entire story has yet to unfold, so now is a perfect time to dive in and catch up!

Twelve Minutes

Travel Through Time While Solving Mysteries

Twelve Minutes

Systems

Released

December 7, 2021

Developer(s)

Luis Antonio

No, Deathloop and Returnal will not be found on mobile devices, but one narrative-driven indie game that also uses time loops as a core mechanic in its story is available on phones and tablets, also courtesy of Netflix. It stars James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem Dafoe and is called Twelve Minutes.

The story has the atmosphere of an A24 movie. An unnamed husband comes home to celebrate his unnamed wife’s pregnancy with a nice romantic dinner, which soon gets interrupted by an intimidating police officer who kills them and resets the loop. As you get farther and farther into the loops of this mystery, plenty of shocking twists come to light.

Grand Theft Auto Series

Play The Legendary Open-World Series On Your Phone

It may be a little obvious that the Grand Theft Auto series has a wonderful storyline, but a lot of mobile players end up overlooking it in favor of other plot-based games. Nevertheless, the Rockstar series makes some incredible titles that have all been brought to Android and iOS.

They each have a lengthy storyline with loads of side missions. There’s so much to do that you’ll end up clocking in more hours than you ever thought you would.