Comparison

SplitLight vs Lantern Deep

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

Head to head
About

SplitLight

Features
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You are the only light. There is a corridor in the dark, and your beam is what shows the way. Sweep the light and you see what waits ahead and to the sides โ€” a wall, a gap, a column. Two thumbs. The left one moves you, the right one aims the light. The rest is down to you and your reflexes: dodge the walls, use the pickups. THREE WAYS TO PLAY CLASSIC โ€” endless, no upgrades, no mercy. Your record is yours alone. DAILY โ€” one world a day, the same one for everybody on earth. Same corridor, same obstacles, one leaderboard โ€” but the streak breaks the moment you skip a day. A new world at midnight UTC. ROGUE โ€” the run that keeps something. Metres become a bank, the bank buys a longer or a wider beam, and every upgrade costs more than the last. Your beam upgrades stay with you โ€” always. WHAT THE DARK DOES BACK Pickups change the beam mid-run: wider, narrower, longer, shorter โ€” and two that change the world instead, speeding it up or slowing it down. Glass columns let the light through and kill you anyway. The dimmed strip behind one is your only warning. Fog eats the reach of your beam metre by metre; inside it you see less than you did a second ago. And every few hundred metres the world turns inside out: black becomes white, white becomes black. TWO SCREENS, ONE DARK SplitLight ships for iPhone and Apple Watch. On the phone you play with two thumbs; on the watch the Digital Crown is your hand and the beam sweeps on its own. The watch version is not a companion widget โ€” it is the same game, rebuilt for a screen the size of a fingertip, and one of the few real arcade games on the platform. BUILT SMALL ON PURPOSE Two colours. No text on the field. No tutorial โ€” the first run is the tutorial. No ads. No subscription. No timers, no energy, no accounts, nothing to watch and nothing to wait for. The game does not collect your data โ€” there is no analytics SDK inside, and your progress lives on your device. Free the whole way through: classic, daily and rogue, all of it, from the first metre to the last. One optional purchase unlocks endless beam upgrades past the fifth level in rogue โ€” buy it only if you have already hit that ceiling and want more. That single purchase is the entire business model. Game Center leaderboards and achievements on both platforms. Turn off the lights. Turn on the flashlight.

About

Lantern Deep

Features
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Carry the light. Survive the dark. You are a diver with a lantern, descending an ocean trench while glowing creatures swarm toward the glow. You only steer. Your abilities fire themselves, so both hands are free to dodge. Survive long enough and the trench sends something enormous after you. The first reef dive calls its boss at five minutes, each stage after it holds out a little longer, and from the tenth stage every dive runs the full twelve. WHAT IS DOWN THERE - Sixty dives through six zones, from the Sunlit Reef to the Abyss, each with its own water, light, creatures and music - Over three hundred creatures that chase, shoal, charge, spit, drift, root themselves and explode, including twenty four elites and twelve bosses - Twenty four special creatures that hunt back with skills of their own: anglerfish that reel you in, rays that open whirlpools, urchins that sow mines, eels that fire beams of light - Sixty eight abilities, each with six levels and an evolved form you unlock by pairing it with the right passive - Fifty one items to find in the water, fifty three relics from treasure chests, and twelve passives - Twelve divers, each starting with a weapon of their own EVERY DIVE IS DIFFERENT Each zone keeps its own roster, so a descent shows you around fifty creatures drawn from hundreds. Two mini bosses are picked at random from four, and the dive ends with one of two possible bosses. You carry six abilities and six passives out of eighty, and the water hands you items as you go. BETWEEN DIVES - Pearls buy thirty two permanent upgrades in the workshop - Every stage you clear adds new weapons to the pool, and seventy five quests unlock more abilities and new divers - A codex fills in as you meet creatures, evolve abilities and find relics - Pressure levels and an endless mode once a dive is cleared MADE IN CODE Every creature, every ripple of light and all two hundred and forty one pieces of music, each zone in its own harmony and every boss fight with its own track, are generated by the game as it runs. There is not one image or sound file inside it, which is why the whole thing is five megabytes. Lantern Deep is free. An ad plays between dives, never during one, and Remove Ads turns it off for good. There are no banner ads. When your light goes out you can watch a short ad to carry on from where you fell, or decline and end the dive. Motes unlock divers: every dive earns them, and packs of them are for sale if you would rather not wait. Motes buy no upgrade, no stat and no advantage inside a dive. No accounts, no sign up, and your progress stays on your device.

Screenshots

SplitLight4 screens
Lantern Deep4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: SplitLight at none against Lantern Deep's shown. Lantern Deep's advantage is device support (4 vs 2) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. SplitLight sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Lantern Deep sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. Both last shipped on October 3, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences ยท 3 level
SplitLight versus Lantern Deep: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSplitLightLantern Deep
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyWeeklyWeekly
AdsNo โ€” betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
DevicesiPhone, Apple WatchiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac โ€” better
Requires iOS26.015.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size2 MB7 MB
Age rating4+9+
DeveloperPavel Gagarinvuong cuong

In-app purchases

1 purchases

SplitLight

One-time1
  • Full Version$3.99
5 purchases

Lantern Deep

One-time5
  • Pocket of Motes$1.99
  • Remove Ads$2.99
  • Buy Me a Coffee$2.99
Show 2 more
  • Satchel of Motes$4.99
  • Hoard of Motes$9.99

Questions

Is SplitLight free?
SplitLight is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Lantern Deep free?
Lantern Deep is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do SplitLight or Lantern Deep have ads?
Lantern Deep shows ads; SplitLight does not.
Which is updated more often, SplitLight or Lantern Deep?
SplitLight ships an update weekly, and Lantern Deep weekly. Most recently, SplitLight was updated on October 3, 2026 and Lantern Deep on October 3, 2026.

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