Comparison

Gladiabots vs Recursive

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Gladiabots

Design the AI for your robot squad and deploy them in strategic combat. Refine your tactics through a single-player campaign and online multiplayer modes. Customize your robots and compete in various game modes without ads or pay-to-win mechanics.

Highlights
  • Create and program robot AI
  • Customize robot crew
  • Single player campaign
  • Online multiplayer modes
  • Multiple game modes
  • Tournament creation
  • Asynchronous multiplayer
Features
Read full description

Gladiabots is a robot combat strategy game in which you carefully construct the AI of your robot squad and send them into the battle arena. Improve, refine and repeat until you outsmart all your opponents and friends online. Features: - Create your own AI and watch your robots execute it in the arena - Fix it, improve it and repeat it until you outsmart all your opponents - Simple and powerful AI programming system offering millions of possible combinations (with no programming skills required) - Create and customize your robot crew - Single player campaign with hundreds of solo missions - Online multiplayer career mode featuring, ranked, unranked and private matches - 3 distinctly different game modes: elimination, domination and collection - Create and compete in tournaments - Asynchronous multiplayer - battle friends even if they are not online - Sandbox mode in which you control both teams to test your tactics - Rank up and earn points to unlock new robot skins IMPORTANT NOTE This game doesn't have any ads and is NOT pay-to-win! The in-app purchases allow you to buy in-game credits that you can use to unlock new skins for your robots. They are optional, purely cosmetic and don't give any gameplay advantages.

About

Recursive

A challenging puzzle game where you guide robots to collect gems by creating simple programs. Master recursion and logic with a minimalistic, easy-to-learn language and diverse level elements.

Highlights
  • Learn a simple programming language
  • Solve puzzles with robots and gems
  • Master recursion concepts
  • Explore diverse level elements
  • Challenging, hard puzzles
Read full description

Recursive is a puzzle game about recursion, patterns, and programming. It is the perfect game for people who love hard puzzles. Your goal is to help little robots complete their mission and collect all gems by finding the correct pattern and translating it into a short program. # Programming language (no prior knowledge required) The programming language is minimalistic and easy to learn. It doesn't require any prior programming knowledge and consists of only four instructions. - Move forward: Move one cell forward. - Rotate left: Rotate 90° left in place. - Rotate right: Rotate 90° right in place. - Change color: Load a chip of a specified color and execute the instructions it contains. And even with this simple programming language, robots can follow complex patterns thanks to the power of recursion and to other tricks that you can discover along with your progression in the game. # Rich levels Recursive offers a large variety of levels thanks to supporting multiple types of elements. - Robots: They can have different colors that reflect the chip they have loaded. - Gems: Your goal is to collect all of them. - Bugs: They destroy robots and make them disappear. - Chips: They make robots load a different program. - Teleportation gates: They make robots teleport to a different location. - Inactive robots: They are activated when touched by another robot. # Mastering recursion Recursion is said to be hard to understand as a famous quote attributed to Stephen Hawking says: "To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion." However, we believe that playing Recursive is another fun way to understand it or even master it.

Screenshots

Gladiabots4 screens
Recursive4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Recursive at 4.9 against Gladiabots's 4.5. Recursive also leads on update cadence (every 4 days vs every 2 weeks) and price ($2.99 vs $3.99). Gladiabots's advantage is review sentiment (87% vs 71%) and ratings volume (90 vs 28). On ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Gladiabots costs $3.99 and Recursive $2.99 up front. Gladiabots sells 5 one-off in-app purchases and Recursive sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Recursive holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 90 and 28 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 87% of Gladiabots's written reviews are positive against 71% of Recursive's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Gladiabots ships an update every 2 weeks, Recursive every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Gladiabots versus Recursive: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGladiabotsRecursive
Price$3.99$2.99 — better
Rating4.5 (90 ratings)4.9 (28 ratings) — better
Positive reviews87.2% of reviews — better71.4% of reviews
Number of ratings90 — better28
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksEvery 4 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS9.0 — better14.0
Further details — not scored
Size182 MB4 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperSebastien DuboisKidori

Customer experience

Gladiabots

All ratings90 ratings
Positive86.7%
Neutral2.2%
Negative11.1%
Written reviews94 reviews
Positive87.2%
Neutral4.3%
Negative8.5%

Recursive

All ratings28 ratings
Positive96.4%
Neutral0.0%
Negative3.6%
Written reviews7 reviews
Positive71.4%
Neutral0.0%
Negative28.6%

Bugs and requests

Gladiabots

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • iOS version not up-to-date
  • AI logic bugs/unexpected behavior
  • Screen not fitting iPad Pro
  • Game not running on older iPads

Requested features

4 requests
  • Korean language support
  • Option to toggle FPS (30/60)
  • Add more robots
  • "Quit" confirmation button in training

Recursive

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

5 purchases

Gladiabots

One-time5
  • Hello World Pack$0.99
  • Script Pack$1.99
  • Algorithm Pack$4.99
Show 2 more
  • Automaton Pack$8.99
  • Neural Network Pack$17.99
3 purchases

Recursive

One-time3
  • 10 hint credits$0.99
  • 20 hint credits$1.99
  • 40 hint credits$2.99

Questions

Is Gladiabots free?
Gladiabots costs $3.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Is Recursive free?
Recursive costs $2.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Gladiabots or Recursive?
Recursive is rated higher. Gladiabots averages 4.5 out of 5 from 90 ratings, while Recursive averages 4.9 from 28 ratings.
Do Gladiabots or Recursive have ads?
Neither Gladiabots nor Recursive shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Gladiabots or Recursive?
Gladiabots ships an update every 2 weeks, and Recursive every 4 days. Most recently, Gladiabots was updated on October 25, 2026 and Recursive on October 24, 2026.

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