Zombie Isles vs ArcadeOS
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Zombie Isles
Engage in a thrilling zombie survival experience across multiple devices. Battle endless waves of zombies, face colossal bosses, and navigate environmental disasters. Choose from numerous game modes, each offering unique challenges and rewards.
- Cross-device play (Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad)
- 14 unique game modes
- Boss battles with unique mechanics
- Environmental disaster survival
- Player vs. Player (PvP) duels
- Squad-based modes
- Progressive difficulty and abilities
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Zombie Isles is a complete survival game — now on Apple Watch, iPhone and iPad. The full game is on every device, with controls built for each one: the Digital Crown on your wrist, thumb-sized controls and a wide camera on phone and tablet. Your progress follows you across all of them. Play 14 different gamemodes including: CLASSIC Survive endless waves of zombies while going from island to island, finding unique weapons and items to use in battle. Fight bosses and zombies in battles across land and sea! Find secret items that bring your game up to the next level, show off your skills by fighting off hardcore zombies with only your fists, or even explore all nine of the islands. The possibilities are endless! ARENA Fight wave after wave of zombies in the torch-lit Arena! Every wave tests your confidence, getting harder and harder endlessly. No breaks, no chests; no one said it was going to be easy! BOSS BATTLE Face a colossal boss many times your size. A new boss takes the arena every hour, each with its own name, powers, and three escalating phases — teleports, laser beams, decoy duplicates, mega shields and more. Defeat one and claim its exclusive character skin. DEFENSE You don't just fight to survive here — wave after wave of zombies are gunning for the generator, and it's your job to stop them. It's like the Arena… except a whole lot deadlier! GAUNTLET Every floor you clear (up until floor ten) grants a new ability. Stack your powers and master your build, because after floor 10 the buffs stop… and the floors never do. How deep can you go? DISASTERS Zombies aren't the only thing to worry about. Fight the horde while steering clear of tornadoes, keep warm as the blizzard blurs your vision, or fight to stay afloat while the hurricane drags you in. Seven deadly disasters. Try to survive them all! RATED & TOURNAMENTS A 1v1 duel against a zombie of similar skill to you — your equal in size, speed, health, damage and cooldowns, so only the smarter fighter wins. They switch between bow and sword, and a well-timed shield will parry you cold. Gain rating with every victory, fight into tournaments, or challenge yourself to a 1v3, 1v5, or even a 1v10. SABOTEUR The zombies have hired YOU to find the one among them that's gone rogue. Study the crowd, track your suspects, and stop the rogue before it comes for you. One wrong kill and you lose — and the round ends by showing you exactly who it was. SHOWDOWN 100 rivals across twelve islands. Scavenge weapons, outrun the shrinking storm, and be the last one standing — and watch your back, because the zombies fight each other too. CAPTURE THE FLAG Lead your own squad as raiders push the enemy base and escorts guard you. Steal their flag and run it home — but get hit while carrying and you drop it. HORDE NIGHT Pick 3, 5 or 10 minutes and a difficulty, then hold out until dawn. The night only gets darker and the horde only gets bigger. KING OF THE ISLE Hold the crown zone while the island tries to take it back. Step outside and your reign ends. Endless — the horde just gets angrier. AND MORE Lucky mode where every chest is a gamble, a Practice mode to master the parry, and a Prize Vault full of exclusive skins. FEATURES • 14 game modes, endlessly replayable • Play on Apple Watch, iPhone and iPad — progress syncs across all of them • 46 zombie types, from shamblers to wizards to the TITAN • Rare DARK variants — stronger, deadlier, and almost never seen • 15 bosses, each with three phases and its own trophy skin • Dozens of weapons: swords, bows, spears, clubs, hammers and axes • Gadgets: dynamite, smoke bombs, frost grenades, caltrops and more • 68 collectible characters, including boss trophies and golden skins • A rating ladder and 32-fighter tournaments • 95 achievements • Daily quests, login streaks and a rotating daily world event • Plays entirely offline — no sign-up, no ads, no data collected SCAVENGE • FIGHT • SURVIVE Made by Arman Brewer
ArcadeOS
Experience a full arcade with 65 original retro-style games on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. Enjoy diverse genres from racing to RPGs, all playable offline with instant resume and authentic chip audio. New games are added seasonally.
- 65 original retro-style games
- Playable on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch
- Offline play with no internet required
- Instant resume for all games
- Authentic chip audio
- New games added seasonally
- No accounts, ads, or tracking
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Welcome to ArcadeOS — a whole arcade in your pocket, and now on your wrist. 68 hand-picked original games, each one its own cartridge: full 3D open worlds, kart racers, ninja action, gothic pinball, paper-craft RPGs, sky shooters, momentum platformers, run-and-gun, belt brawlers, puzzle boxes and rhythm. Every game is an original creation in the spirit of the golden age of consoles — drawn in code, scored with real chip audio, and built to be picked up in seconds. HALLOW EDITION Worlds, not cartridges. LOOSE KEYS: HALLOW HOLLOW is a full 3D open city under an orange moon: take any car, hearse, helicopter, plane or boat, outrun a three-star heat system, fly a fast jet off a military airfield, land an airliner at the international airport, and work a phone full of jobs — in a city full of witches, skeletons, horsemen and the odd creature from an 1818 novel. At its heart is HOLLOWMERE, a haunted theme park with a graveyard coaster you can actually ride, a drop tower, and a lagoon parade with fireworks on the hour. MODS ship with it: god mode, every weapon, flight, moon gravity. IRONBARK is a heavyweight momentum platformer: an armored-bark brawler and a glider partner tag-teaming through an industrial jungle of barrel-cannon chains, mine-cart runs and hidden bonus rooms, drawn in fine-pixel art. GLIMMERGLASS KEEP rounds it out — a free-roam 3D collect-a-thon built over 25 nights of iteration. All three have original soundtracks synthesized live inside the app. CHERRY EDITION 23 games rated five stars by our testers before they shipped — look for the cherry on the cartridge. Highlights: Reefjack's lantern-tide run-and-gun, Thornhollow's gorge platforming, Quiet Falls' suburban-oddball RPG, Emberline's three-winter family saga, Cascabel's commedia brawler, Ironvane's vertical shooter, and Crestline GP's speedboat regatta. APPLE WATCH ArcadeOS ships with an Apple Watch app. Six games are built for the wrist and the Digital Crown: Redline Ridge (crown hops lanes, hold to burn), Sunstrip (crown steers, tap to shift), Ironvane (crown flies, hold to charge, tap to call your wingman), Truck Simulator (roll the crown and the truck drives itself — steer, hold to brake, deliver the cargo), Haywire (a horse loose in a farmyard full of physics: buck, jump, cause chaos) and Cairnglass (a crown-controlled falling-sigil puzzler). Runs on its own — no iPhone needed nearby. FEATURES 68 games — every one with its own hand-crafted cartridge art Home screen: your games as icons, with folders you make yourself Gold-star collection: beat a game, earn its golden seal. Collect them all Authentic chip sound in every game, and full synthesized soundtracks in the 3D worlds Instant resume — every game remembers exactly where you left off No accounts. No ads. No tracking. No internet required. Just games New games ship in seasonal editions — Cherry, and now Hallow ArcadeOS games are living software: they grow new levels, mechanics, and polish over time. Your shelf gets better while you sleep. Powered by RetroApps.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Zombie Isles at 5.0 against ArcadeOS's 3.0. Zombie Isles also leads on update cadence (every 5 days vs every 3 weeks) and iOS requirement (16.0 vs 26.5). ArcadeOS's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2). On price, ratings volume, ads 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
Both are free to download. Zombie Isles sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. ArcadeOS asks for nothing beyond the download.
Zombie Isles holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 5 and 2 respectively.
Zombie Isles ships an update every 5 days, ArcadeOS every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.
| Parameter | Zombie Isles | ArcadeOS |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (5 ratings) — better | 3.0 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 5 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 26.5 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 24 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 4+ |
| Developer | PolicyZen | RetroApps LLC |
Customer experience
Zombie Isles
ArcadeOS
In-app purchases
Zombie Isles
- Hero Membership$3.99
- Superhero Membership$5.99
ArcadeOS
No in-app purchases









