Best simulation games for iPhone and iPad (iOS)

Totally Accurate Battle Simulator is a physics-based battle simulator that has you building up armies, taking on strange weapons, riding animals, and trying to somehow destroy anything that comes against you. It’s a silly game, with a lot of silly aspects to it, but sometimes that makes for the best type of simulators. You are able to control the look and weapons in your units, their positioning, and are able to watch them take on a bunch of different battles in the campaign more or just deck it out in the sandbox mode.

Sticking with our tactic of avoiding ‘customary’ simulation material, here’s an even odder one. In Plague Inc., you play as a virus attempting to wipe out the entirety of the human race (strikes too close to home right now, huh?).

While realistic, it’s a lot less grim and a lot more challenging than it sounds. In effect, you’re trying out different combinations of diseases and infection vectors in your quest to render the earth a sterile husk. And once the body count starts rising, you can tinker further with your DNA to ramp up the seriousness of the plague to biblical proportions. One of the cruelest simulation games for iPhone, as it depicts our current state perfectly, but that’s exactly why it’s one of the best games out there!

112 Operator is an iPhone simulation game unlike any other. You are put in charge of emergency services, starting off as someone who answers phone calls when people call for an emergency. You then need to talk things through with them and decide what action to take. Once you know what places need, you will need to route different vehicles to these places. But there is so much more to the game.

You will need to plan out what vehicles are in the area, decide what workers are in each one, upgrade their tools, hire more people to answer calls, and start to solve major crimes through your direction and guidance. It’s an intense game, and there’s nothing not to love about it.

Speaking of PC ports, let’s get this obvious candidate out of the way before we go any further.

While it might not strictly qualify as a simulation in the traditional sense of the term, it deserves a spot on the list for being an incredibly rich and fun game that – unlike the previous entry – has lost virtually nothing in its transition from desktop to handheld.

And anyone doubting that there’s not some genuine real-life replication value ought to read the story of Alice and Kev.

The next simulation game on the list is definitely one of the best options if you are a football fan. Indeed, currently, one of the best sports games for mobile devices is Football Manager 2024, until we get 2025, probably. There is good news, as you’ll be able to update it to FM25 and all of your saves should work! Anyway, in this simulation app, you will take control over one of the famous (or less famous) teams, implement new strategies, trade players and lead it to victory.

You will find many well-known football superstars who can be a part of your team. What separates this sim from others is attention to detail. You can spend hours looking for a player that will fit your squad perfectly, and then spend time trying to sign and train him. There are various team compositions and options, so with a bit of luck, your decisions will decide who wins the day.

If you are looking for other similar titles, make sure to check our list of the best sports games for iOS.

People tend to assume that ‘simulations’ have to be based on either transportation or the military. Or both. So, here’s an oddball sports sim to start us off. Anyone scoffing at the idea that you can make a realistic copy of any physical sport really ought to try True Skate. Because this is the closest thing to real skating you’ll find on the App Store. Well, short of adding wheels to your iPad and heading down to the local skatepark.

As you might expect, it’s fiendishly difficult. That just makes it fiendishly satisfying, though, when you pull off the stunts with style.

Check out our True Skate review

Minecraft is one of the best and definitely the most popular survivor simulator on mobile devices. There is no end to your creativity in this game.

In the game, you will find a creative mode that gives you unlimited resources and allows you to do whatever you want and a survival mode that challenges you with tons of enemies. Will you be able to survive in the dangerous world of Minecraft?

It is regularly updated with new exciting features. You can also play with your friends on different devices. Minecraft is one the best games in the simulator category that is worth playing!

Raising crossings over a bewildering array of different chasms using a limited palette of materials for each is more engrossing than you could imagine. You’ll learn a surprising amount about physics and suffer from a surprising amount of indigestion as you nervously load traffic onto your bridge here. Guaranteed.

Bridge Constructor is as addictive as it is beautiful. It’s got some astounding elements that make it so much more realistic than it has to be (honestly) but that’s exactly where its flair comes from. The game looks stunning, cleverly combines strategic puzzle elements, and is easily one of the best simulation games for iPhones.

Check out ourBridge Constructor review.

Let’s face it: however much you might want to pretend that your simulation tastes run to strategically micro-managing transportation, what you really want to do is get in a virtual tank and blow stuff up. Well, unsurprisingly enough, there’s an app for that. And it’s called Battle Supremacy.

While Atypical Games’ tank battling game does include unrealistic features like an enemy lock-on, it’s still an exciting, detailed, and challenging affair (especially once you throw multiplayer in the mix). And it’s probably a GOOD idea that the game developer doesn’t try to replicate being stuck in a small hot metal box with a sweaty driver who’s eaten too many military-issue beans.

Startup Panic puts you in the role of an owner at a new Startup. You’ve quit your job, you are sick of working for a demanding boss, and now you are trying to become your own boss and correctly run an office. Your job is actually to create a game studio, using skill trees to create different aspects of the game and doing freelance contract work to boost your cash flow.

Unlike other iPhone simulation games, you will need to give your workers vacation time and manage how often they are in the office if you want to be successful – no longer can you work people into the ground.

The Sky Gamblers series has gone through various iterations, with its creator improving the accessibility and graphics each time until it’s become the benchmark aerial dogfighting game on iOS.

Go back a few versions, however, and you’ll find Storm Raiders 2, an incredible mixture of thrilling combat and demanding realism set during World War II. This represents arguably the pinnacle of the franchise so far. And it just goes to show that ramping up the simulation qualities of a title can make it all the more exciting, rather than just making it less approachable.

Stardew Valley, in essence, is a role-playing story sim with elements of a farming simulator. But it’s much more than that, as there are so many components and gameplay options that it’s hard to put it in a box and define exactly what it is. You’ll inherit a derelict farm at the edge of a small village with very interesting and colourful inhabitants who will do their best to welcome you. At least some of them.

Having inherited an old farm, you need to build a new cool place on your site. For this, you have to extract resources, raise livestock, cut down forests, and create new tools for gardening. You’re able to romance various characters, create a real home and family, or go fishing and ‘dungeoneering’ the whole day, it’s all up to you in the end.

House Flipper is a fun first-person management sim where you become a one-man maintenance crew. In the game, you will buy abandoned houses that are in need of a full-scale renovation. And after the work is done, you can sell them at the best possible price.

There are over 500 adorable decor and furniture items to unlock. House Flipper will provide you with hours of fun, so we can call it one of the best simulation games for iPhone and iPad.

Fallout Shelter is one of the best building and surviving simulators. After the nuclear war, the world is in disarray, and there aren’t many survivors. The luckiest got to live in the Vaults, and that’s where you step in, as one of the Vault Guardians. The game will make you manage your resources smartly. Also, you cannot arrange rooms in the shelter randomly. You need to monitor the number of resources and do not forget that bonuses will help you develop your shelter faster.

Each inhabitant has a bunch of characteristics that you should take into consideration to choose the most effective workplace for them. If you are looking for a construction simulator that will teach you how to manage available resources correctly, you should give Fallout Shelter a try! And if you struggle to survive, here are the best layouts for Fallout Shelter!