This year has seen tons of great console and PC titles arrive on iOS like Rogue Legacy, Dead Cells and more. One of the highlights of 2019 on iOS for me is thatgamecompany’s Journey ($4.99) which had a surprise launch on the App Store a little while ago. It has been published by Annapurna Interactive who also brought Flower to iOS. I liked the iOS port of Journey a lot. Read my review here. Watch the iOS launch trailer below:
Journey on iOS brings the complete experience to mobile and a portable device for the first time including matchmaking which is very important for the whole experience. Today, Journey got updated to add controller support and fix some performance issues. I can’t actually test how PS4 and Xbox One controllers work if it even properly supports those because I’m not on iOS 13 but I played with my MFi controller to check it out an hour ago. The implementation is functional but not great. The on screen buttons to jump and signal are still visible when you have a controller paired. The main menu has controller button prompts though which is good. Camera control still feels a bit too slow though. Hopefully the next update can address that.
Journey is available right now on the App Store from Annapurna Interactive. You can buy it for just $4.99. Check out the official website here. I’m looking forward to more games getting controller support now that iOS 13 lets you use PS4 and Xbox One controllers. Have you played Journey on iOS yet?
Yay, I can buy it now!
I was looking forward to MFI support. Unfortunately, as the article states, the controls need some work. Movement (I’m using a SteelSeries) works as expected, but turning your view is slow as molasses—it feels like it would take more than half a minute to do a complete revolution, while flicking the screen turns instantly. I can find no way to adjust the turn speed, so while this is a welcome addition, I look forward to another update.
Semi-related: Sky still doesn’t support external controllers.
Update: Now it does.
Badda boom badda bing.
I’ve only put like a half hour into this game, but for me, I haven’t found this game intuitive at all! I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do! Run here, run there. I know I wanna fly, but the first thing I did was run up a sand don’t to where I could see these things up on top of it, and when I got there, on the little ruins I got something, I don’t even know what it is, and I jumped up, and it looked like I was gonna fly, but I can’t! Just fall to the ground every time. Looks like I’m gonna have to read a fac to find out what I’m supposed to do here! So far, it’s not fun at all! Everyone says how great this is, but I’m not feeling it at this point. Must be something I don’t know about. 😉