Apple Arcade is here, and you can play some of the subscription service’s many games with select models of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers as well as Mfi (Made for iOS) controllers like the SteelSeries Nimbus+.

During Apple Arcade’s announcement, though, Apple gave the impression that all Apple Arcade games would work with gamepads (in part because the service will eventually also come to macOS and tvOS), but it turns out that’s not entirely true. Some games have interfaces solely designed for touchscreens—at least on iPhone and iPad. 

Updated 02/19/21: Since early 2020, every new Apple Arcade game has included official controller support on all platforms. We’ll stop updating this article every week, with the assumption that every new Apple Arcade game supports game controllers. We will only update this article if there’s a rare exception or the policy seems to change.

How to see if a game has controller support

Apple technically tells you if a game supports controllers or not. If you’re on the game’s landing page, look for the Controller icon under the Get link. But there are many, many others that don’t—such as Enter the Gungeon—and we’re still testing them to find the exceptions. In some, such as Tint, you can use the controller on the game’s start menu on the iPad, but you can’t use it to actually play. In Outlanders, you can use a controller to navigate around the map, but you can’t interact with anything. In cases such as those, we do not count the game as having controller support.

In other cases, such as Sonic Racing and Cricket Through the Ages, you can apparently play with a controller on the iPad, but not the iPhone. 

Remember: Not even game that supports controllers says it supports controllers. 

Your mileage may vary depending on which controller you use. Old MFi controllers don’t always support the “L3” and “R3” buttons that activate when you click in on the thumbsticks and so don’t have the versatility of the Xbox and PS4 models. In many cases, the games recognized that we were using a DualShock 4 and showed PlayStation inputs on the prompts, rather than A/B/X/Y.

Every Apple Arcade game that supports controllers

Note: Games that do not list controller support for iPhone or iPad in the App Store, but still seem to be fully playable with controllers on those devices, are marked with an asterisk.

We’ll keep this list updated as we learn about more games with controller support.

• Agent Intercept
• Alba: A Wildlife Adventure
• All of You
• Atone: Heart of the Elder Tree*
• Ballistic Baseball*
• Beyond Blue*
• Big Time Sports*
• Bleak Sword*
• The Bradwell Conspiracy*
• Butter Royale* 
• Cardpocalypse*
• Charrua Soccer*
• ChuChu Rocket! Universe*
• The Collage Atlas
• Creaks*
• Cricket Through the Ages* (iPad only)
• Crossy Road Castle*
• Dead End Job*
• Decoherence*
• Discolored
• Dodo Peak
• Don’t Bug Me!*
• Doomsday Vault
• Down in Bermuda
• Dread Nautical*
• EarthNight*
• Exit the Gungeon*
• Explottens
• Fallen Knight*
• Fledgling Heroes*
• A Fold Apart*
• Frogger in Toy Town*
• Game of Thrones: Tale of Crows
• The Get Out Kids*
• Grindstone*
• Guildlings
• Hexaflip*
• Hogwash
• Hot Lava
• INMOST*
• HyperBrawl Tournament*
• Jenny LeClue—Detectivu*
• Jumper Jon*
• King’s League II
• Kings of the Castle
• The Last Campfire
• Legend of the Skyfish 2*
• LEGO Brawls*
• LEGO Builder’s Journey*
• Lifelike: Chapter One*
• Lifeslide*
• Loud House: Outta Control*
• The Lullaby of Life*
• Lumen
• Manifold Garden*
• Marble It Up: Mayhem!
• Marble Knights
• Mind Symphony*
• Monomals*
• A Monster’s Expedition
• The Mosaic*
• Murder Mystery Machine*
• Mutazione
• Necobarista
• Neo Cab*
• Neversong*
• Next Stop Nowhere
• Nightmare Farm
• No Way Home*
• NUTS – A Surveillance Mystery
• Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon
• Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm
• Operator 41*
• Overland*
• Over the Alps* (It’s wonky, though.)
• Pac-Man Party Royale*
• Painty Mob*
• The Pathless
• Pilgrims
• Pinball Wizard*
• Populus Run
• Projection*
• Punch Planet*
• Rayman Mini*
• Red Reign
• Redout: Space Assault
• Reigns: Beyond
• Rosie’s Reality*
• Roundguard*
• Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time
• Sayonara: Wild Hearts*
• Scrappers*
• Secret Oops!* (It plays better with touch controls, though.)
• Shantae and the Seven Sirens*
• Shinsekai: Into the Depths*
• ShockRods*
• Skate City*
• Slash Quest!
• Sneaky Sasquatch*
• Sociable Soccer*
• Sonic Racing* (iPad only)
• South of the Circle
• Spaceland
• Speed Demons* (iPad only)
• Spelldrifter*
• Spidersaurs*
• Spire Blast
• SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit*
• Spyder*
• Star Fetched*
• Stela
• Stellar Commanders*
• Stranded Sails*
• Super Impossible Road*
• Super Mega Mini Party*
• The Survivalists
• Tangle Tower*
• Things That Go Bump
• Towaga: Among Shadows*
• Towers of Everland*
• UFO on Tape: First Contact*
• Ultimate Rivals: The Rink*
• Unleash the Light*
• Various Daylife*
• Warp Drive
• Way of the Turtle*
• Word Laces*
• What the Golf?*
• Yaga: The Roleplaying Folktale*
• Zombie Rollerz: Pinball Heroes*