Infinity Blade is not something I've had cause to think about for a damn long time. The swipey ARPG launched on iOS way back in 2010, and because I've never owned an Apple product I was left out of all the fun. And there was plenty of fun to be had, with simple-but-responsive brawls and graphics that blew other mobile games of the era out of the water. This, along with a slew of positive reviews, bumped it up the iOS charts, where it became the fastest growing app ever in the App Store at the time.
Unfortunately, due to the difficulties of keeping it updated for modern hardware, Infinity Blade was removed from the App Store by Epic Games in 2018, so the only way you could play was if you'd kept your old phone. But now you can not only play it again, you can do so on your PC after a fan port was revealed on the Infinity Blade subreddit.
An anonymous modder has done all the hard work of getting it up and running, as well as tweaking textures, adding dynamic shadows and introducing support for hotkeys and keybinds. A recent update also added Proton compatibility, so it's now playable on Steam Deck as well, which feels like an even more appropriate platform for something that's still, ultimately, a mobile game.
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The modder and the team assisting them emphasise that they've "done this for the sake of lost media preservation", which feels like an even greater necessity in the realm of mobile games. For instance, new phone models come out at a much more rapid rate than consoles, which have pretty long life cycles, and even then old games often get ports or are backwards-compatible. On PC, meanwhile, we've got companies like GOG and Nightdive Studios working to bring back games that launched long before the current digital ecosystem existed. Mobile gaming, as a result, feels substantially more fleeting.
While not as strict and litigious as, say, Nintendo, Epic could still throw a spanner in the works in the shape of a cease and desist. Unofficial fan projects like this often run into trouble when the owners take notice. The launch of the port has been gaining traction on multiple subreddits, so there's a good chance Epic has caught wind. It's worth noting that I did reach out to the team, and they're happy for us to cover the port's launch.
You can find instructions on how to download it via a quick Google or by checking Reddit, and to see what changes have been made from the iOS version you can check out the full list below.
- Camera actors are no longer restricted to 4:3 aspect ratio.
- Support for hotkeys / keybinds. This required some changes to the UnrealScript to prevent activating abilities when you're not supposed to, such as Super and Magic outside of combat.
- Dynamic subtitle scaling. Originally it used static presets for iPhone and iPad respectively.
- Console commands are now available.
- Many (but not all) UI elements have will appear in HD.
- An options entry has been added to exit the game, which can also be assigned to a keybind.
- SFX relied on a specific iOS quirk to function, which meant it didn't work on PC. The PC version has fixed the issue and added a separate SFX slider too.
- The PC version adds dynamic shadows, wheras iOS originally had none.
- Fixed Ealoseum's dialog being interrupted.
- Every boss and player item have had diffuse + specular textures separated to increase texture quality.
- Fixed broken materials, notably the forge weapon (which took on the texture of whatever shield was equipped).
- Font resolution has been doubled to suit high-resolution PC displays.
- Reworked how the game handles music tracks to prevent tracks from overriding each other.
- Many props across the game have had texture increases (notably the bridge in Outerwalls, and the cart + boxes on the Courtyard bridge).
- In-app purchase system have been removed.
- Baked lightmaps are higher in quality.
- Camera sensitivity has been untied from the framerate, allowing for high framerates on PC.
- Tutorial dialog popups have had visual fixes.
- A launcher has been created for the game to manage settings externally in order to keep the game as close to its iOS version as possible.
- All weapon UI icons have been AI upscaled from 256x256 to 512x512.
- Added godrays to outside scenes.
