New release roundup: The best new mobile games from Zenless Zone Zero to Zen Koi Pro+

• Here are the most exciting new mobile games right now, the developers and publishers behind them, and why, exactly, they've made the cut

Produced alongside our friends at PocketGamer.fun - THE place to discover your next favourite mobile games - here's our pick of the best fresh-this-week titles.

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So here are the most exciting new mobile games right now, the developers and publishers behind them, and why, exactly, they've made the cut.

Zenless Zone Zero

When HoYoverse announces a new game the whole world watches, and pre-registers en mass in eager anticipation of the fun ride ahead. This year’s new HoYoverse RPG is Zenless Zone Zero, an "urban fantasy" title that yielded DOUBLE Honkai: Star Rail’s pre-registration numbers, with over 45 million fans having waited for this one. That’s a lot of hype.

Here, players take on the role of a Proxy, set out from the bastion city New Eridu, and explore alternate dimensions to put a stop to the Ethereals. These creatures have already destroyed most of the human world, but survivors are fighting back with the Ethereals’ own technology.

Zenless Zone Zero features plenty of unusual characters like wolf-man personal attendant Von Lycaon and bipedal bear Ben Bigger who’s also a huge maths nerd. There are human characters too, like the leader of public security’s Criminal Investigation team Zhu Yuan.

Players can form parties, mix and match characters for different strategic advantages, and even take their strategies across platforms thanks to the game’s cross-progression capabilities.

The Pathless

Action-adventure game The Pathless has made a mobile migration from Apple Arcade to the App Store and Play Store, bringing master archer the Hunter and her trusty eagle companion to Android for the first time.

Gameplay sees players traverse the open world without a mini-map, leaving them reliant on "Spirit Vision" to find places of interest. And traversal itself is something of a minigame, as players can keep themselves apace by shooting talismans with a bow and arrow, filling the Hunter’s dash metre and hastening progression.

All of this is with the goal of lifting a curse on the island, achieved by lighting obelisks spread across the land. These can be lit with Lightstones, which developer Giant Squid has hidden behind puzzles, trick shots and more.

Pand Land

Pokémon developer Game Freak has launched its first-ever mobile-exclusive game in Pand Land, currently limited to Japan. It’s a maritime adventure RPG all about traversing the high seas and discovering the best treasure going, cruising through the chaos with up to 400 friends.

Being a console developer with decades of experience, Game Freak designed Pand Land to be "like a console game, but an easy and simple game that can fit in one hand". The game was co-developed with fellow Japanese studio WonderPlanet of Jumputi Heroes, Sonic Beat feat. Crash Fever, and Alice Fiction acclaim.

And Pand Land’s status as a mobile-only game can’t be understated, representing new ground for Game Freak as it looks to explore new platforms in a suitably exploration-based game.

Zen Koi Pro+

While HoYoverse offers zero zen this week, LandShark Games has players covered with Zen Koi Pro+ out now as an Apple Arcade exclusive. It’s a game all about chilling out with cute fish and meditative music, collecting gems and hatching young, and the new Pro+ version iterates on the original with a brand-new colourful array of koi patterns to collect.

This tranquil journey will ultimately see the koi transformed into dazzling dragons, with the Pro+ version also streamlining this process with instantly hatching eggs and an offline single player mode, giving the Apple Arcade edition some clear advantages over the standard form. That includes a "super-shiny" variety of koi and dragons, too.

The colourful koi come in more than 50 patterns with delightful combinations to be found, whether that’s a moody black and red, a soothing blue, or a deep purple decorated in striking golden stars. They all come from the minds at Singaporean development studio LandShark Games, also the creator of Monster Candy and Facebook game Aviator.

Guncho

Self-proclaimed "small-scale" turb-based RPG Guncho takes players to the Wild West with gunslinging abound and randomly generated levels to keep them coming back for more. Turn-based elements come into play when seeking the perfect positioning through limited grid-based moves, challenging players to outthink bandits and manoeuver to the best spot possible before blasting them with bullets.

The environment plays an important role too, whether that’s using a cactus for a weapon, catching bandits in a bear trap, or even leading them into the path of a displeased ram. There’s even a donkey to ride.

Guncho was developed by Card Crawl Adventure creator Arnold Rauers with art and animations by Terri Vellmann and a score from Sam Webster.

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