The legendary Infinity Blade trilogy is finally playable on Android, and it’s a massive victory for game preservation

When Infinity Blade released, it took just 4 days for it to become the fastest grossing app ever, registering more than 270,000 users at the price tag of $5.99 — which wasn't cheap back then, especially for a mobile game. 

But the reason why I rushed to share the full story with you isn’t just because the games were technical marvels of their time. The series’ artistic merit, story and gameplay are still incredible to this day, and it’s a true gift that we can finally play them once more.

How Fortnite killed mobile gaming’s greatest series

I have an old iPad 2 that I used to rely on during my student years, circa 2012. Back then the App Store was just as, if not more, saturated in terms of gaming content, so of course: I dabbled in that as well. I’ll never forget that my first real-money purchase was Infinity Blade, and by the end of the week, I bought the sequel, and was eagerly waiting for the final installment of the trilogy.

Playing Infinity Blade on a bigger screen and an Apple-made display at that was simply unreal (pun intended). In the game, you fight through a gauntlet of enemies through what are basically gestures: swipe to attack and counter, tap buttons to dodge and use your shield.

The way the game was designed provided me with almost tactile feedback, without any use of buttons, which was monumental. I was pretty opposed to touchscreen-based games back then, and Infinity Blade really made me rethink my stance.

I still keep that iPad, and one of the primary reasons I held on to it was these three games among other gems.

So imagine my surprise when one day I boot it up and see that all three games are missing. Up until recently I thought that the series was just a casualty in the Epic vs. Apple courtroom debacle, but that wasn’t the case.

As it turns out, Epic Games decided to delist the Infinity Blade series due to two factors:

• Fortnite’s popularity
• The now-cancelled project Spyjinx, which was a focus back then

But it goes deeper than that. Infinity Blade utilized Unreal Engine 3, which relied on OpenGL. At the same time, however, Apple was switching to their proprietary Metal API. This happened around the launch of the iPhone X, which also introduced an 19.5:9 aspect ratio, mismatching the 4:3 aspect ratio that the games were originally designed for.

What all of that means is that in order for Infinity Blade to stick around, Epic would have to rework a substantial chunk of each game. That, of course, would require resources, and it simply made more sense to invest those in Fortnite, which was already a global hit. 

It’s a real shame that Infinity Blade got delisted, because it was the first mobile game to use Epic’s Unreal Engine, marking a massive milestone in mobile gaming history.

But here’s what Epic couldn’t account for: how much love the community holds for Infinity Blade to this day. And it’s very easy to understand why.