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Since the launch of Android in 2008, Apple’s iOS has lagged significantly behind its Google-powered competition in one respect: retro gaming. While some companies, particularly Final Fantasy creator Square Enix, regularly bring their older games to the App Store via official mobile ports, the best fans of Sonic or Mario used to be able to get through the App Store were freemium games like Sonic Dash or Super Mario Run.
Sometimes, you want something a little meatier. And Android fans would agree—since the platform’s launch, it’s been open to game emulators, which can mimic old consoles using software to play games from the ‘80s, ‘90s, and in some cases the ‘00s and beyond.
As Apple gears up the iPhone to be a modern gaming powerhouse with fully functional versions of games like Resident Evil Village, it seems like the company is finally ready to address this blind spot. Emulators can be tricky for relations with game publishers, even if they’re technically legal, but in an update on April 5, Apple finally changed its rules to allow them on the App Store, provided they don’t distribute copyright-infringing material.
Since then, a small but dedicated group of developers has stepped up to bring retro gaming to the most popular mobile platform in the US. Here are the best game emulators for iPhone—and best of all, they’re all free.
RetroArch
RetroArch is the most powerful emulation program on the App Store, but technically, it’s not an emulator at all. Instead, it’s a front end for running various emulation “cores” distributed by other developers. Think of RetroArch like a menu, where each core is a different console you can pick off the menu and then customize to your liking.
Because of all these options, it can be a little confusing to navigate. RetroArch’s interface is bare-bones, and while it can be dressed up with various themes, it will still sometimes dump dozens of concepts on a page at once while doing little to explain them.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt/Lifehacker
The upside is that, right from when you download it off the App Store, you’ll be able to play games from a list of 70+ consoles, including popular mainstays like the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation 1. Most will work out of the box, but some might require a BIOS (or operating system) file, or at least suggest adding one or two for added compatibility.
That’s the rub with emulators: They can’t distribute information protected by copyright, so you’ll need to provide it yourself. Emulation enthusiasts assure that making backup files of games you own is legal according to U.S. law, although the practice has yet to face much legal scrutiny.
But RetroArch makes it more difficult to load up your own files than most competing programs. Rather than picking from a list of games, all displayed with pretty box art, the general process is to Open RetroArch, select Load Core, pick the system you want to play (there might be multiple cores for each system, with varying levels of performance and accuracy to original hardware between them), click Load Content, then click Open and select your game from your file browser.
That’s a lot to do every time you want to play a game, and might require you to do some research beforehand about which core to use. And there’s more—once you get into a game, there’s dozens of settings to tweak, including “Frame Throttle” and “Latency.”
For the most part, you can ignore these, but while you can mitigate the pain with features like Favorites and Playlists, it can still be a little overwhelming.
Enthusiasts are sure to love the granular control, though, as setting can even be set on a per-core basis. Everyone else can at least be assured that there’s easy access to basics like touch controls and save states (which can save a game anywhere, separate from its in-game save function) while you’re playing, which you can do in either portrait or landscape mode.
RetroArch is the best choice to get the most tweaks and consoles at your fingertips, and is worth a download just as a backup, since it might be the only way to play certain games. But if you’re looking for something more user-friendly, there are other options.
Delta
Delta was the first emulator to really take off on the App Store, and functions like a stripped-down but more user-friendly version of RetroArch. It also supports a number of cores, but only one for each console, and for just a select number of mostly older systems.
These include the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo, the Nintendo 64, the Game Boy Color, the Game Boy Advance, and the Sega Genesis. Again, you’ll need to provide game files yourself, and in the case of the DS, BIOS files.
But once you’ve gone through those steps, setup is much simpler than in RetroArch. You simply need to add a game to Delta’s main menu once, through a + icon in the top-right corner that will let you browse either iTunes or your files, and Delta will add it to a menu for the appropriate console, complete with box art.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt/Lifehacker
From there, just click on the game’s icon and it’ll boot up. You’ll see touch controls that will work in both portrait and landscape mode, and have access to basic functions like save states and a “hold button,” which can keep a specific button continually held down when you play (useful for games like Super Mario World).
In the app’s settings menu, you’ll also be able to add cheat codes, change the opacity of the touch controls, and even connect to a DropBox or Google Drive folder to load games from there.
It’s generally a smoother experience, and frankly, it’s also cuter. Delta has a very Gamecube-purple color across all its menus, and the touch controls for each system come with great theming, which you can also swap out for custom options if you want.
If all you want to do is play old Nintendo games, Delta might be your best bet, as it’s similar to Retroarch but doesn’t require a computer engineering degree to use.
PPSSPP
PPSSPP is actually available in Retroarch as a core, but if all you want to do is play PSP games, it’s your best bet.
That’s because it’ll give you everything Retroarch does, but like Delta, comes with an interface that’s simpler to navigate.
The catch is that it only works in landscape mode, but since PSP games are widescreen anyway, that’s probably want you’ll want to use regardless.
The UI here isn’t as clean as Delta’s, but it still offers a simpler basic process than RetroArch (and the menu is cute too, since it resembles an actual PSP menu). To play a game, just open the app, click Load, and browse your files for your game. PPSSPP will add it to the Games menu, and after playing it, it will show up in the Recent menu for later use.
Once in a game, click the ^ arrow at the top of the screen for save states as well as more advanced options that you can set per game. Like with RetroArch, there’s some real vocab here, like “Disable culling” and “Skip GPU Readbacks,” but you can generally ignore these, and experts will like the extra options.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt/Lifehacker
The only real flaw with the app is that it’s not as powerful as on other systems, since Apple’s coding restrictions have prevented developer Henrik Rydgård from adding in features like RetroAchievements and Vulkan graphics support. In a blog post, Rydgård said he was working on bringing these back, but that performance might always lag behind the version of the app on other systems, as Apple doesn’t allow the Just-in-Time recompilers that can help retranslate code for smoother play.
Still, given the power behind modern Apple devices, this shouldn’t be a problem for most. The biggest problem I had when playing Mega Man Maverick Hunter X was the touch controls, but as with all other emulators on this list, you can use an external controller instead if you wish.
Note that you will eventually see a paid version of PPSSPP on the App Store, but if it’s like past PPSSPP releases, it won’t come with any extra features. Instead, buying it is just a way to support Rydgård’s work.
Gamma
Gamma is a hard sell, but if you really don’t want to deal with RetroArch, it might be a good choice for you. It’s another single purpose emulator, this time for PS1 games, and it generally works like Delta. In fact, while talking to The Verge, Delta developer Riley Testut said Gamma is based on his work, with permission.
It should be a slam dunk, with a similar easy setup process that just involves pressing a + in the top right corner, adding the game file, and automatically having it populate a list with included box art. There’s even a service for linking to a Dropbox or Google Drive folder, plus the ability to use various skins with the touch controller. Gamma can also play without a BIOS, though adding one can improve performance.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt/Lifehacker
The problem is the ads. When booting a game and while idling on the main menu, Gamma will play ads that can last up to a minute, and it just completely kills momentum. The app will also ask to track your activity when you first load it up, which can be a little frightening.
There’s a way around this, which requires turning off wifi and network data while using Gamma. But that’s a lot to do just to play games from the ‘90s.
What emulators aren’t on iOS?
Even with these four options, iOS still lags behind Android when it comes to emulation. RetroArch, as complicated as it may be, covers most bases, but systems like PS2, Gamecube, Wii and even Nintendo Switch are still unrepresented on the device, even as they’re playable elsewhere.
We might never see these systems come to iPhone, thanks to the limitations pointed out by Rydgård, but with general support up to PSP, alongside ports of modern AAA games like Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, the iPhone is in stronger contention to be the best gaming phone than ever before.
