Hello everyone, and welcome to the week! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of the last seven days. A blend of the familiar and the less-common this time around, with some nifty Apple Arcade updates, a few free-to-play favorites, and more. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself by participating in the TouchArcade forums. This weekly summary is just here to fill you in on the things you might have missed. Let’s go for it!
A Monster's Expedition, A Monster’s Expedition has expanded its reach to other platforms, and with that move comes a massive content update for the Apple Arcade original. There are more than 100 new islands to explore, which is… you know, that’s a lot of new islands. There are also more than a dozen new exhibits to find, helping you learn more about those weird human things. You also get native support for Mac devices using Apple Silicon, plus a bunch of bug fixes and stability improvements. Yes, that’s a good one.
LEGO® Brawls, I don’t know about all of you, but when I think about ninjas, I think about undersea adventures. Apparently that is where Ninjago is at now? LEGO Brawls has a new level based on Ninjago Seabound, and you can control the dragon ruler of the seas, Wojira. You can also play as the Champion Nya and wield the forces of the water itself. There are seventeen new minifigs to collect, and a Golden Zane and Golden Nya to add to your Legacy collection. Do shuriken work underwater? If so, how? Eh, best not to keep scratching I guess.
EarthNight, Okay, so this is a pretty cool update. Basically, the original idea behind this game apparently saw both Stanley and Sydney working together, and this update finally makes that happen. When playing solo you can now enjoy Companion Mode, where the other character will join you in your run. They will help you in various ways, but if you decide you want to go it alone you can turn off this new mode. Along with this, there is now two player local co-op where each of you control one character. There are some new tutorials, a lobby that changes with the holidays, and many more goodies. Do check it out.
Star Traders: Frontiers, $6.99 It’s been a bit since we last took a look at Star Traders: Frontiers, but rest assured it has been updating almost continuously the whole time. The latest one adds some Mission talents to the Talent Manifest, thirteen variations in all. Some bug fixes and improvements, a few balance tweaks, you know how this all goes. It’s wild that so many years on, this keeps getting such frequent updates. How do they keep finding things to add? Your guess is as good as mine, friends.
Merge Dragons!, Free This update does the usual thing for Merge Dragons, which is to say that it plants the seeds for a few upcoming events. So let’s just go through those event names and see if anything is interesting about them. Let’s see… Camp & Chill, Ocean Breeze, and Toys Galore. Sure, that all sounds very summer-like. Hanging out around the dragon-campfire roasting dragon-marshmallows. Relaxing on the dragon-beach sipping dragon-lemonade. Toys, because toys are never out of season. I’m sure there will be new dragons to collect, and new merges to make. Enjoy these lazy days.
Toy Blast, Free See, toys are never out of season. That’s what we call ‘connecting text’, everyone. Actually, it may not be. I may have just made up a term because I don’t like using the word ‘segue’. Reminds me of those weird scootery things that were popular for a few years around the turn of the millennium. Dreadful things. Probably in cahoots with Spider-Man. Anyway, fifty new levels. There’s a camping theme, which also kind of ties in with that Merge Dragons stuff. Totally accidental, but it works. I’m rolling with it. And that’s the obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle update sorted. Home free!
Jurassic World Alive, Free The AR Jurassic World game gets another update, as you would probably guess by the fact that it is in an article about best updates. There are some new Flock creatures in this version, messing about the real world by double-parking and such. There are also some new Raid Bosses incoming, improved AR features that make those dinosaurs look better than ever, and lots of bug fixes and performance improvements. Dinosaurs are very cool, so I’m tempted to fork over that special prize. But no… there is another.
Fire Emblem Heroes, Free Judging by the new icon, I suppose we are celebrating four and a half years for this game. Yikes, that time just sort of slips by. Whether in celebration or just by pure chance, there’s a new type of event in the game as of this version. Heroes Journey has been added to the game, and the first such event will kick off rather soon. People who subscribe to the Feh Pass will also earn loyalty perks from here on, much in the manner of Mario Kart Tour. The distribution of Heroes in upcoming summoning events has also been adjusted. Well, whatever keeps the coffers filled for the next mainline game, I guess.
MARVEL Future Fight, Free Suit up, heroes. The latest Marvel Future Fight update is all about those armored characters. It’s time for Armor War 3099, and that means a whole lot of clashing metal. Four new uniforms are in play related to this event: Doctor Doom, War Machine, Hulkbuster, and Rescue. There are also two brand new original summer uniforms added for Quicksilver and Silk, because why not? A new Tier-3 Doctor Doom has been added, and so have Potential Transcended versions of Hulkbuster and Rescue. Not bad. It’s never a bad idea to put Doctor Doom up front, I say.
Marvel Contest of Champions, Free And here we go with the last game in the list. It’s more Marvel! There’s something up with Mister Fantastic that will probably become readily apparent. But the most important thing is that we’ve got a Spider-Man event! Yay! Complete Special Solo objectives, play Solo events, and head into the Arenas to earn Digital Snapshot currency that you can turn in at the Daily Bugle for all kinds of goodies. There is some other stuff, but that’s sufficient for me to call this the winner of the coveted UMMSotW award for this week. Yes, I actually gave it to something Spider-Man related for once.
That about wraps it up for last week’s significant updates. I’m sure I’ve missed some, though, so please feel free to comment below and let everyone know if you think something should be mentioned. As usual, major updates will likely get their own news stories throughout this week, and I’ll be back next Monday to summarize and fill in the blanks. Have a great week!
