The best new Android games: November 2023 edition

Mobile gaming is getting bigger and better every month, and many new Android games are always available. Whether you’re a casual gamer, want something with a bit more meat on its bones, or want to really challenge your new smartphone, there’s usually a game coming out to suit everyone’s taste. Let’s look at the best new Android games of November 2023.

Warcraft Rumble

• Price: Free to play
• Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
• Genre: Strategy

Blizzard’s latest mobile strategy title is a great time-wasting skirmisher for fans of the Warcraft universe. The title blends a character collection sub-game, where over 60 are available, with tower defense and MOBA mechanics. Blizzard offers single-player campaigns and PvP battles for more experienced players.

While Warcraft Rumble is visually attractive, you may require a top gaming phone to enjoy it fully despite its relatively generous system requirements. You also might be put off by the steep difficulty curve that requires players to grind excessively for unit upgrades or purchase them with real cash.

Oh My Dog – Heroes Assemble

• Price: Free to play
• Developer: Joy Nice Games
• Genre: RPG

Oh My Dog is the strangest, most endearing thing I’ve played all month. You play as an overworked and bullied office worker visited by Dog God — a halo-wearing Shiba Inu — who acts revenge on the workplace antagonists. It’s essentially a strategy RPG with collectible dog heroes, but the strategy itself isn’t too deep. There’s no real skill curve to conquer in this title. Instead, it’s a great way to relieve stress. The colorful and pleasing animation is another pro, but those craving a more engaging title might want to install something else.

Lovebrush Chronicles

• Price: Free with in-app purchases
• Developer: Exptional Global
• Genre: Visual novel / Adventure

This game might seem like a dating sim on the surface, but it’s incredibly vast in scope. Yes, it employs the visual novel narrative framing system, that prompts you to read text and respond accordingly. However, it also rolls in an illustration (called Illustras in game) collection system, a battling system, and multiple methods to progress the story. Of course, you can also pick your own adventure based on the decisions you make in-game and the characters you align with, and this certainly adds to the title’s replayability.

Coromon

• Price: Free trial / $4.99 unlock
• Developed: Freedom Games
• Genre: RPG

If you don’t want to run an emulator on your phone just to play classic Nintendo titles like Pokemon Red, Coromon might scratch your itch. This JRPG takes plenty of cues from its predecessor — even the creature battling system and number of monsters you can hold are similar — but the gorgeous overworld really steals my heart. Visually, it’s akin to Stardew Valley.

The developer suggests you’ll get around 40 hours of gameplay from the title, but we imagine you’d spend a lot more, especially considering the 120 monsters all have their strengths and weaknesses.

It took over a year for Coromon to graduate from Steam to Android, but the wait was well worth it.

Sinag Fighting Game

• Price: Free to play
• Developer: Ranida Games
• Genre: Fighting

There are few ways to innovate in the fighting game genre, but Sinag does just enough to differentiate itself. First and foremost, the characters in this Ramida Games’ title are based on Philippine mythological figures, which is something we’ve not seen before. The gameplay is also easy enough to grasp for non-fighting gamers (like me) but might not be deep enough for those who enjoy learning combos.

Sinag’s characters look great, but that’s about it on the visual front. The static backgrounds employed are dreary and uninspired, while only eight characters are available. Nevertheless, there’s also a story mode — something you won’t find in every fighting game. I’m hoping this title is continuously developed, as the potential is clear.

Kingdom Eighties

• Price: $4.99
  
• Developer: Raw Fury
• Genre: Sidescrolling Action / Strategy

Kingdom Eighties is a smaller, self-contained expansion to the larger Kingdom series. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea for that reason alone. However, the sidescroller does have its positives. It keeps its resource management traits that implore you to build your army of kids and adorns the system with a retro animation art style. There’s also an overarching story in which Greed is personified, and your family is marked as one of the most influential in the game world. We won’t reveal much, but consider that Kingdom Eighties requires an immediate investment before play. There is no free trial or try-before-you-buy period.

Gacha Life 2

• Price: Free to play, includes ads
• Developer: Lunime
• Genre: Simulation

Gacha Life 2 has been out for just under a month, but we can’t get enough of it. The sequel to Gacha Club now provides players with over 300 character slots, more than 400 collectible characters, and more granular design sliders and controls for clothes and other items. This is the game to get if you spend hours in character creation menus before you actually start playing, and it makes for some surprisingly therapeutic gameplay. Sound good? Grab the free-to-play title right away.