Comparison

Hold the Tile! vs Coldfront

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

Head to head
About

Hold the Tile!

Engage in real-time strategy battles in a medieval world. Build your base, command legendary generals with customizable skills, and lead diverse units in tactical squad combat. Explore dynamic battlefields, gather resources, and unleash devastating magic to conquer your opponents.

Highlights
  • Real-time 1v1 strategy battles
  • Base building and defense
  • Customizable legendary generals
  • Squad-based tactical combat
  • Resource gathering and upgrades
  • Devastating magic spells
Features
Read full description

◉ LEAD YOUR ARMY TO VICTORY! Step into a captivating low-poly medieval world where strategy, base-building, and tactical combat collide. Face off in intense, fast-paced 1v1 real-time strategy battles and fight for dominance across ever-changing lands! ◉ EXPLORE & CONQUER DYNAMIC BATTLEFIELDS: No two matches are the same. Explore maps full of tactical opportunities and hidden dangers divided into strategic regions. The entire world is shrouded in the Fog of War - you must scout the unknown terrain to discover resources, locate enemy bases, and plan deadly ambushes. But beware! Ferocious Barbarians guard the map's most valuable, uncharted territories. Defeat these camps to claim rare resources and fuel your war machine. ◉ COMMAND & CUSTOMIZE LEGENDARY GENERALS: Lead your forces with distinct classes of Generals - the Warrior, the Builder, and the Mage. Between matches, earn Skill Points and dive into deep, RPG-style Talent Trees. Customize your playstyle by unlocking powerful abilities. Want to try a new strategy? Reset your skill points at any time to experiment with entirely different builds and adapt to your growing army! ◉ TACTICAL SQUAD-BASED COMBAT: Recruit a diverse roster of units - from steadfast spearmen and swift archers to massive orcs and powerful mages. Group them into squads and march into battle. Manage your troops manually for precise micro-control, or let the auto-battle system handle the frontline. ◉ BUILD, DEFEND AND UPGRADE: A strong army needs a strong economy. Gather wood, iron, and gold to establish your base. Fortify your territory with walls, towers, and strategic bridges to hold off enemy raids. Use your hard-earned coins to permanently upgrade your units and structures. ◉ UNLEASH DEVASTATING MAGIC: Turn the tide of war with powerful spells! Rain down fireballs, summon living trees, or slow your enemies to a crawl. But magic comes at a cost: expand your borders, capture more land, and overwhelm your opponent with arcane supremacy!

About

Coldfront

Experience real-time strategy built for touchscreens. Build bases, command armies, and engage in epic battles against AI or up to seven other players. Enjoy a campaign, daily challenges, and offline skirmishes.

Highlights
  • Touch-optimized controls
  • Base building and army management
  • Multiplayer battles (1v1 to 8 players)
  • Offline campaign and skirmish modes
  • Daily challenges
  • Map editor
  • Replay system
Features
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One drag, twenty tanks. One tap, and they roll. Built for touch: the real-time strategy you used to stay up far too late playing. Free to download. No ads, no timers, no energy bars. Harvesters roll out to the crystal fields. Your base rises under the cranes. Tanks, infantry and aircraft pour off the line. And somewhere across the map, someone else is doing exactly the same thing. TWO ARMIES. ONE WAR. EMBER digs in. FROST follows the money. EMBER is free, and it goes everywhere. Troopers and Maulers up front, Stormcaller rockets behind them, Skyjacks on jetpacks overhead, and the Titan, for when you're done being polite. FROST is a whole second army with its own units, buildings and economy. Its Glacier refinery drives out to the ore and sets up shop. Then the weather turns: Avalanches, Whiteout bombers and Hailstorm flak. Anyone can fight against FROST. Commanding it yourself is a one-time in-app purchase that also unlocks the rest of the campaign. That's the only thing we sell. BRING A FRIEND. OR BRING SEVEN. Real people, real time: online battles from 1v1 to 8 players. Host a room and send the code or an invite link, or tap QUICK MATCH. Sign in with Game Center to climb the ranked ladder, or skip it and just play. If a player has to step away, the match pauses for them instead of dropping them. FIFTEEN MISSIONS A campaign that teaches, then bites. Act 1 takes you from your first harvester to full-scale assaults across ten missions, and it is free. Act 2 takes the fight to FROST: five more missions against it, the first of them free to play. The rest come with the FROST purchase. A NEW FRONT EVERY DAY TODAY'S FRONT is one fresh battle a day, and the whole world gets the same one. Win it, then go again and beat your best time. SKIRMISH ANYWHERE Fight the AI on Easy, Normal or Hard. Go it alone, or team up with friends online. Campaign and skirmish work offline, so your commute counts. DRAW YOUR OWN WAR Lay out terrain, ore, starting positions and control points in the map editor, then host a room on it: everyone who joins plays your map. Ten built-in maps ship with the game too, from snowfields and desert to city blocks, wetlands and lava rifts. ON TAPE Every match you start saves itself as a replay. Relive the win. Scrub to the second the loss went wrong. IT SOUNDS LIKE A WAR Shells leave craters. Wrecks burn. The shots you hear started as real recordings. The crystal ore shrinks as you mine it, and you can watch your harvesters fill up. On newer iPhones and iPads, the water moves and the trees sway. No account to make, no third-party tracking, nothing between you and the next match.

Screenshots

Hold the Tile!4 screens
Coldfront4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Hold the Tile! at none against Coldfront's 1. Hold the Tile! also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). Coldfront's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.8). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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

Both are free to download. Coldfront sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Hold the Tile! asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Coldfront holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 16 and 6 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Hold the Tile! ships an update every 3 days, Coldfront every 4 days. Both last shipped on November 5, 2026.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Hold the Tile! versus Coldfront: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHold the Tile!Coldfront
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (16 ratings)5.0 (6 ratings) — better
Positive reviews87.5% of reviews—
Number of ratings16 — better6
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 4 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size318 MB428 MB
Age rating12+9+
DeveloperMikhail VartanovGurpreet Heer

Customer experience

Hold the Tile!

All ratings16 ratings
Positive93.8%
Neutral0.0%
Negative6.3%
Written reviews16 reviews
Positive87.5%
Neutral6.3%
Negative6.3%

Coldfront

All ratings6 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Hold the Tile!

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Coldfront

One-time1
  • Frost + Campaign Act 2$0.99

Questions

Is Hold the Tile! free?
Hold the Tile! is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Coldfront free?
Coldfront is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Hold the Tile! or Coldfront?
Coldfront is rated higher. Hold the Tile! averages 4.8 out of 5 from 16 ratings, while Coldfront averages 5.0 from 6 ratings.
Do Hold the Tile! or Coldfront have ads?
Neither Hold the Tile! nor Coldfront shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Hold the Tile! or Coldfront?
Hold the Tile! ships an update every 3 days, and Coldfront every 4 days. Most recently, Hold the Tile! was updated on November 5, 2026 and Coldfront on November 5, 2026.

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