Games that don't murder your battery

Flashy games can be lovely and also empty your phone before lunch. We ran a rough battery test on our review picks, playing each for twenty minutes at the same brightness and noting the drop.

The surprise was that some visually busy games were kinder than expected, while a few simple-looking ones ran hot. Optimization matters more than art style, and it's not something a screenshot will ever tell you.

Arcade titles generally did well, probably because sessions are short and the loops are light. Racing games sat in the middle. The heaviest hitters were, unsurprisingly, the 3D RPGs during big fights.

If battery life is a real constraint for you, favor games with short sessions and simpler scenes, and check our review notes — we flag anything that ran unusually warm.