At Gamescom 2023, we went hands-on with various upcoming mobile games. From quirky indie puzzlers like Paper Trail to AAA franchises like Zenless Zone Zero, tons of exciting games are coming to your Android phone.

We’ve picked the seven best mobile games at Gamescom 2023. All of them will be coming to your Android devices soon, so you have time to upgrade to one of the best Android gaming phones to ensure you can run every last one of them.

1 Three Minutes to Eight

Three Minutes To Eight is our favorite indie title at Gamescom for good reason. On the surface, it’s just another indie 2D pixel art platformer, but there’s a lot of depth behind its premise. In Three Minutes To Eight, your character is destined to die at 7:57, and your job is to prevent this. Every time you die, you’ll have the chance to replay the last few moments of your life, uncovering more clues with each cycle.

Three Minutes To Eight is a stunning atmospheric adventure we can’t wait to explore when it launches later this year.

2 Paper Trail

Paper Trail’s developers took a unique approach when crafting this puzzle game, prototyping the mechanics on sheets of paper before reproducing them digitally. Each level is built of separate sheets of paper, which can be folded to reveal solutions to the myriad of puzzles you’ll encounter. The sensation of folding accurate sheets of paper is accurately represented in Paper Trail. While it sounds like a gimmick, the tactile response of its gameplay makes solving puzzles a joy.

Paper Trail isn’t just about its clever gameplay. The storybook scenery is packed with detail; it’s a journey of exploration, not just puzzle-solving. Paper Trail is planned for release in early 2024, but there’s a demo you can play right now on Steam.

3 Midnight Girl

The point-and-click adventure game Midnight Girl incorporates elements of stealth and puzzle games but keeps the casual gameplay that is the trademark of development studio Italic. In our time with Midnight Girl, we explored a section of the game that demonstrated how you will progress through this adventure. While certainly catered towards casual audiences, we hope the full game retains some of the challenge that made game director Thomas Ryder’s previous work, The Silent Age, a hit.

There is no release date set for Midnight Girl on mobile, but in the meantime, you can try out the demo on Steam.

4 Kingdom Eighties

The Kingdom franchise is known for its fantastic medieval side-scrolling strategy games, but Kingdom Eighties shakes things up with a completely different setting. While the core gameplay is similar to previous games, and the Greed (evil antagonists of Kingdom games) make a return, setting the game in the 1980s forced the developers to think outside the box when creating Kingdom Eighties.

Kingdom Eighties will feel familiar to anyone who’s played a Kingdom game, but it isn’t just an 80s reskin. New gameplay modes like Survival Mixtape make their first appearance, and Raw Fury is also planning a Kingdom Two Crowns update. Kingdoms Eighties will arrive on mobile this fall.

5 Zenless Zone Zero

HoYoverse hopes to continue producing some of the best gacha games on Android with Zenless Zone Zero, a game resembling Hokai Impact 3rd but with a modern combat system. As we noted when we went hands-on with it, Zenless Zone Zero promises the level of polish we’ve come to expect from HoYoverse, but its fresh combat system is the real draw here. Combat is fluid and dynamic and looks to have cut some of the bloat in previous HoYoverse games,

There is no release date for Zenless Zone Zero or even a date for a beta, so we may have to wait until late 2024 for a full release.

6 Assassin’s Creed: Codename Jade

Unfortunately, we didn’t get our hands on Assassin’s Creed Jade at Gamescom, but the event marked the first gameplay trailer for the upcoming mobile-exclusive game. This is the first Assassin’s Creed game for mobile that promises gameplay akin to the mainline games. The open world of 215 B.C. China is the setting for all your wall-climbing, tower-jumping, and back-stabbing activities. While we only have the trailer to go off, it looks like a radical departure from the underwhelming Assassin Creed mobile games we’re used to.

No release date is set for Assassin’s Creed Jade, but you can sign up for closed beta access through the official website.

7 Command & Conquer: Legions

Command & Conquer: Legions isn’t the first Command & Conquer game to arrive on mobile, but it’s the first that looks to offer gameplay similar to the original games. While little is known about the game yet, Level Infinite aims to optimize the title for mobile gaming sessions, making matches shorter and faster. There are plenty of excellent RTS games already on the Play Store, so hopefully, Level Infinite has taken the successes of these games to heart during development.

Command & Conquer: Legions should arrive on mobile later this year. You can pre-register via the official website or watch the Play Store page below.

Gamescom 2023 delivered a wealth of indie gems and AAA hits

Indie games like Three Minutes to Eight and Paper Trail look stunning, but we’re also excited about the adaption of existing AAA franchises to mobile. Rather than being cheap spin-offs of franchises, the new Assassin’s Creed and Command & Conquer games could provide the experiences that fans know and love. But to tide you over until then, try some of the best games out now on Android.