iOS Video Game Emulators

Last updated March 23, 2022

About emulation on iOS

At some point, you may have searched Apple's App Store for video game emulators and found absolutely nothing. Video game emulators are banned! They once existed at the very beginning of the iPhone's release. However, Apple woke up one day and suddenly decided to ban all video game emulators from the store.

It's not fair, especially since emulators themselves are not illegal. Apple is aware emulators run using 'illegal' ROMs, so to avoid any conflicts with Nintendo and such, they decided to ban emulators altogether.

The good news is that it is possible to load video game emulators onto your iPhone or iPad. It's relatively easy to do, too! You may have heard of jailbreaking your device to load emulators. Jailbreaking is risky and voids the warranty, so this article will not touch on that subject. Rather, I'm going to review with you safe workarounds to use emulators. Some options are free, but most options (especially the better ones) require a fee.

Official game releases

To begin with, I'm going to contradict this article by saying you may not need video game emulators! As a webmaster of an RPG site, I feel compelled to point out that there are lots of RPG classics that were officially released in the App Store. Most of them have improved graphics or have been completely remade. They go for around $3-18 US. Those RPGs are listed below.

= works with Bluetooth gamepads

Files app & extracting ZIP/RAR/7Z

Working with ROMs and emulators requires getting comfortable with iOS's Files app and extracting ZIP, RAR, and 7Z files. iOS's Files app comes with iPhones and iPads by default. Emulators require ROMs to be in a certain location. Hence, you need to use the Files app to move your downloaded ROMs from Safari's Downloads folder to the emulator's ROMs folder (just like on OSX or Windows).

When you download a ROM from a ROM site, most of the time it'll be a ZIP file. Every emulator has the ability to run ROMs from zip files. However, Safari-based emulators (which I talk about below) can't run games from ZIP files and require them to be extracted first. YouTube has lots of videos showing you how to use the Files app and extract ZIP files: How to extract ZIP files with the Files app.

CD-based games such as PlayStation 1 and Sega CD tend to be larger so ROM sites distribute games in a RAR or 7Z file instead of ZIP. The Files app doesn't support extracting them. Rather, I recommend installing iZip which supports extracting RAR and 7Z files.

Safari-based options

Video game emulators aren't limited to apps. Did you know you can simply load a website in Safari (or any other Internet browser) to play ROMs? It's pretty cool! I have several of these emulation websites listed in my links. They come with a few caveats, though:

1. The performance of browser-based emulators is slower than app-based emulators. Super Nintendo may be the most your device can handle. Luckier people can handle PlayStation 1 and N64.
2. These websites normally don't come with a way for you to save your progress.
3. Screen filters, cheats, and other common emulator features aren't offered.
4. Browser-based emulators are designed for desktops.
5. They're all free, at least. You just need to tolerate their ad-infested pages.

Sorry, I know I'm painting a pretty dreary picture for you with this. I wanted to talk about the bad before talking about the good. As an iOS user, there is a solution for you when it comes to browser-based emulators. Let me introduce you to Afterplay.io!

While browser-based emulators are a good option, if you want the best emulation experience you need to download fully-fledged emulators onto your iPhone or iPad. Keep reading to learn about 'alternate app stores'.

Intro to alternate app stores

Did you know there's a way for you to sideload apps onto your iPhone or iPad without jailbreaking? This is possible when your device is currently in the 7-day developer trial period. As a developer, you have the freedom to install whatever apps you want outside of the App Store. Then when the 7-day trial expires, you lose access to your sideloaded apps.

So what if there was something out there that made this process easier so you can always enjoy video game emulators on your iPhone and iPad? That's where 'alternate app stores' come in. These special app stores make it easy for you to sideload apps once you're in the developer trial. Additionally, they make it easy to renew the developer trial so that the sideloaded apps can remain on your device indefinitely.

List of alternate app stores

• AltStore (Free!) - This is the best, free alternate app store. The drawback is that it can be tricky to set up. Fortunately, there are plenty of YouTube help videos and a dedicated AltStore Reddit to help you every step of the way.
• Builds.io ($20/year) - For an annual fee, this app store promises to be far easier to set up and use than AltStore. You can install emulators for all the classic systems: NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, GBA, PlayStation 1, PSP, etc.
• Signulous ($20/year) - This is similar to Builds.io. The difference is that it makes it easy to sideload your own apps outside of their app store.

Remember what I talked about earlier about using the Files app and extracting files. Using the video game emulators provided by alternate app stores requires moving files around and extracting them.

The best emulators

Once you have an alternate app store up and running, you're going to have lots of options for video game emulators. In general, the best emulators are the multi-system emulators. There are two I need to highlight:

• Provenance is the best multi-system emulator for touchscreen controls.
• RetroArch is the best multi-system emulator for Bluetooth gamepads. If you need help with RetroArch, you can follow my RetroArch for Android tutorial (the UI is the same).

Finding games

In my links page, I have some good links to sites where you can download ROMs and ISOs for classic video game systems.

Finding games for PS2/PS3/PSP/GameCube/Wii and beyond is trickier due to how large games are. These games are typically not available in ROM sites readily found on Google. However, Archive.org is a superb site where you can find these games for download. Navigating that site isn't easy. It's easier to search Google with such phrases as “archive.org playstation 2”. I offer some more help with that in this image .

Another way you can try to find large/newer games is through Reddit. The best way to find them is by searching Google with such phrases as “reddit download playstation 2”.