Over the past few years, mobile esports have grown at a substantial rate to become almost as big as mainstream esports. The PUBG Mobile Star Challenge 2018 held in Dubai had a $600,000 prize pool, while the PUBG Mobile Club Open 2019 has a $2.5 million prize pool for the entire year.
Viewership numbers are also being broken by mobile esports. The Free Fire World Cup 2019 held last April averaged 630,931 viewers, according to esports charts.
As mobile esports continues to grow, more games are stepping into the fray. The best thing about mobile games is that you don’t have to put years of dedication into mastering them—it can be done in a span of a few months. So if you’re dreaming about living a life of competitive gaming, these are some games you should be diving into.
Here are four mobile games that could have bright futures.
Brawl Stars
Brawl Stars is the latest title from Supercell, a developer that’s produced other hit mobile esports games like Clash Royale and Clash of Clans. It’s a free-to-play multiplayer online-based arena (MOBA) game that came out globally in December 2018.
The freemium title generated over $200 million in its first four months. The simple controls and various game modes, including a showdown mode that’s basically like a mini battle royale mode, make it really appealing to a wide audience.
Since it’s a MOBA, the game presents itself as a spectator-friendly esport and it already has had several tournaments over the past few months. The game is a part of the DreamHack Mobile Series, which is a new mobile esports tournament.
The game also has weekly tournaments in North America that are supported by Supercell. The weekly tournaments are called the Brawl Stars Open and have a prize pool of over $1,000. Supercell revealed in a tweet that it plans to expand the Brawl Stars Open to other regions.
Call of Duty Mobile
Call of Duty Mobile has been developed by Activision and Tencent and has elements from across the Call of Duty franchise, including the Modern Warfare and Black Ops series.
It’s a first-person shooter (FPS) game, and even though it hasn’t been released yet, it could have some sort of esports league built around it. The game is backed by Tencent, who’s experimented with esports in almost all of its mobile titles. Activision could also be looking to dive into mobile esports after enjoying success with the Call of Duty World League.
The five-vs-five shooter will undoubtedly be a huge success as it already has over 10 million pre-registrants. The highly-competitive team-based gameplay makes it a perfect esport.
Guns of Boom
Aside from a few other games like PUBG Mobile and Clash Royale, Guns of Boom is one of the few mobile games with a properly-structured esports league. The game’s esports tournaments are managed by ESL and it’s been played in some of the biggest esports events in the world, from IEM Katowice in March to ESL One Cologne this July.
The game has a $500,000 prize pool for its first season in 2019. Its esports competitions are open to players from almost all regions of the world, including Latin America, Europe, North America, and Southeast Asia.
The game is simple to play but still has a high skill cap, which makes it an attractive mobile title to casual and hardcore gamers alike. Recently, the Guns of Boom Pro Series was held in Brazil on June 8 with a $40,000 prize pool. The game has a dedicated player base and a growing esports scene.
Asphalt 9: Legends
Gameloft’s ninth installment in the Asphalt series came out in February 2018, and since then, the racing game has had many esports tournaments.
It’s a part of both the ESL Mobile Opens presented by AT&T and Vodafone. It recently had a live event at DreamHack Dallas, too. The ESL Mobile Open by Vodafone is an international tournament where players from countries where Vodafone runs its services can participate.
Gameloft also recently announced the Asphalt Esports Series 2019, which has a $22,336 prize pool. The game receives constant updates and is set to be the top racing esport on mobile.
