It’s no exaggeration to say that Neon Chrome ($6.99) was one of the best mobile games to hit the App Store in 2016. The beautiful cyberpunk aesthetic combined with an engrossing sense of progression elevated Neon Chrome to the very apex of the iPhone’s dual stick shooter genre, and received a highly coveted five-star review from the notorious Carter Dotson himself back in November. Understandably, everyone wanted even more Neon Chrome to play, and so the promise of the Arena DLC hitting mobile back in January was extremely exciting. However, months went by with little information on when this expansion would make its way to the mobile iteration of the title, and even with a substantial amount of content in the base game, Neon Chrome fans were beginning to wonder if the Arena DLC would ever make the transition from PC at all. Thankfully, 10tons have today confirmed that a first version of Arena for the iOS port of Neon Chrome is finally playable, and they are looking for testers on our forums to help balance and optimise the expansion before its upcoming launch.

With other projects like the highly enjoyable Xenoraid (Free) taking up a lot of the developer’s time, it’s understandable that the Neon Chrome Arena DLC may have been knocked down the list of priorities for 10tons somewhat. However, with Neon Chrome proving to be one of the most popular dual-stick shooters amongst our mobile gaming community, it’s a relief to see more content will arrive for the title sooner rather than later. For those of you unfamiliar with the PC version of Neon Chrome, the Arena mode essentially acts as a survival mode with multiple different scenarios, offering up play styles like Techie, Soldier, Psycho, Hacker and Assassin. While this mode predominantly relies on your laser-sharp reactions, weapon upgrades can be found to help make surviving slightly less arduous.

All in all, it’s a fantastic addition to an already brilliant game, and fans of Neon Chrome will want to look out for the Arena expansion when it launches in the near future. With the developers citing the mobile version as relatively rough in this early stage, be sure to sign up for the extremely limited testing phase for the Neon Chrome Arena DLC on the game’s forum thread.