Mobile RPGs and the Battery Problem Nobody Talks About

We love a meaty RPG on the phone, but there's a catch reviewers rarely mention: some of them drain a battery like nothing else. A game can be brilliant and still be impractical if you can't play it for twenty minutes without watching the percentage plummet.

During testing we keep an eye on this. Ashfall Legion, for instance, runs cool and efficient because it's turn-based and doesn't render flashy effects constantly. Real-time RPGs with heavy graphics are usually the worst offenders, especially on older phones like the beat-up test unit we keep around on purpose.

There are ways to help — lowering the frame rate, dimming the screen, closing background apps — but the real fix is on the developer's side. Efficient games respect that your phone does other things too, like, you know, being a phone.

So when we flag battery behavior in a review, it's not nitpicking. For a game you'll play on the go, it might be the difference between a keeper and an uninstall.