Apple says entire iPhone 16 lineup will play AAA games, no iPhone Pro required

Apple has unveiled the iPhone 16 and claims you’ll be able to play AAA games across the devices in the series, not just the more expensive Pro models as was the case last year.

Apple began to emphasize the iPhone’s AAA gaming credentials with the 2023 iPhone 15 lineup, announcing that games like Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Resident Evil 4 Remake would be playable exclusively on the ray-traced iPhone 15 Pro.

12 months later, the iPhone 16 is here, with what Apple claims is a 30 percent CPU and 40 percent GPU boost over last year’s model, thanks to the new A18 chipset – designed to handle the company’s compute-intensive on-device AI features coming later this year. And that extra oomph (including hardware-accelerated ray tracing on the iPhone 16) means AAA is no longer the preserve of the iPhone Pro.

Apple says the base iPhone 16 is capable of playing already-released games Death Stranding: Director’s Cut, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil: Village. Digital Foundry previously looked at all four games running on the iPhone 15 Pro and reported mixed results , so it’ll be interesting to see how this year’s phones compare – even if claims of low AAA sales on iOS mean we may not see an influx of new big titles anytime soon.

The iPhone 16 (which gets a new physical Camera Control button and the previously Pro-only action button) starts at £799 for 128GB of storage and a 6.1-inch display. The 6.7-inch iPhone 16 Plus, meanwhile, costs £899 for the same storage, and it only goes up from there. Over at the Pro end, prices start at £999 for the 6.3-inch/128GB model, or £1,199 if you’re after the 6.9-inch Pro Max. All models launch on September 20, with pre-orders available from September 13.

In related news, Apple has confirmed that iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 will both launch next Monday, September 16. These new operating system upgrades introduce a new Game Mode, designed to minimize background activity to improve framerates – and there’s also the promise of improved responsiveness for wireless game controllers and AirPods.