Technologies

The 15 Best Mobile Games in 2025: Top iPhone and Android Games

From arcade classics to modern indie darlings, we’ve collected the best games you can carry in your pocket.

Whether you have an iPhone or an Android device in your pocket, you’re a part of the most popular (and arguably most profitable) segment of the games industry. There are 3.4 billion active mobile gamers in the world, according to Newzoo’s data analysts.

The world of mobile gaming is constantly evolving, and it’s easy to fall victim to choice paralysis when trying to figure out where to start. While you can still download games from your phone’s app store, you can just as easily boot up an emulator, stream Xbox Game Pass titles through cloud gaming or subscribe to the Apple Arcade service. There are more games available at your fingertips than ever before.

This carefully curated list includes the best games across both iPhone and Android that you can download right now, including older arcade-style classics and newer indie games that’ll push your mobile gaming experience to the next level.

FAQs

How we determined CNET’s best mobile games

When creating this list of the best mobile games, we factored in how unique and enjoyable these games are for most players, from impressive graphics to novel gameplay to compelling narratives. Our picks cover a variety of genres from deckbuilding roguelikes to tower defenses to shooters to fantasy RPGs, and while we favored classic mobile experiences that take advantage of simple control schemes, we also included some can’t-miss games that appear on multiple platforms. If you’re looking for help choosing your next game, CNET’s top mobile games list is a good place to start narrowing your choices.

Technologies

The FCC Just Approved Charter’s $34.5B Cox Purchase. Here’s What It Means for 37M Customers

Technologies

Spotify Expands Into Audiobook Rankings With Weekly Charts

The feature is available to both free users and Premium subscribers. Wuthering Heights is reaching the heights on both the US and UK charts.

If you’re a Spotify user, you may be familiar with features like the year-end summary Wrapped, as well as your daily usage stats. Now, the service has a new popularity chart tracking audiobooks.

Spotify’s audiobook charts are now available to free and Premium users within the service’s Audiobooks hub. While only Premium users receive 15 hours of audiobook listening per month, the company offers a larger selection of titles you can buy.

US charts and UK charts are both available now.

Read more: Best Music Streaming Services for 2026

Spotify says that the audiobook charts will help customers discover new and popular titles in real time.

«As we’ve proven with Music and Podcasts Charts, when content is easier to access, discover, and enjoy, the demand grows,» said Duncan Bruce, Spotify’s director of audiobook partnerships and licensing, in a statement on Friday.

Spotify launched audiobooks in 2022, and has since added features such as the AI catchup tool Recaps and PageMatch, which lets you swap more easily between a printed book and the audio version.

Spotify Premium currently costs $13 a month and includes more than 100 million songs, as well as audiobooks. Spotify Premium is currently CNET’s Editors’ Choice for best music streaming service.

The current US audiobooks chart lists Emily Brontë’s romantic classic Wuthering Heights as the top listen, followed by James Clear’s self-help book Atomic Habits and Freida McFadden’s psychological thriller The Housemaid. Audiobook popularity is also broken down by genre, with charts for romance, mystery and thriller books, self-help, science fiction and fantasy, biography and memoir, business and careers, teen and young adult, religion and spirituality, history, and parenting and relationships.

Powered by its blockbuster movie adaptation starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, Wuthering Heights also leads the overall chart for the UK.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Feb. 28, #523

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 523, for Saturday, Feb. 28.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a tough one. Chicagoans and southerners, you might have an advantage, at least with the blue and purple categories. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Fore!

Green group hint: Take me out to the ballgame.

Blue group hint: Alma mater.

Purple group hint: Bear down.