5 Android apps you shouldn't miss this week! - Android Apps Weekly

• Rome: Total War is headed to Android sometime this winter. The popular war strategy game originally came out on PC back in 2004. Feral ported the game to iOS back in 2016. Thus, this isn’t the newest, freshest release. It should be a pay-once game if it’s similar to the one on iOS and that would make it a rare release on mobile. We don’t know too many of the details, but we’ll let you know when the game comes out sometime over the next couple of months.
• The Google Play Awards voting has commenced. The current voting is for the best trending apps and games of 2018. Google has 40 total candidates for voting with 20 apps and 20 games. Some of the titles include PUBG Mobile, Clash Royale, Reddit, The Athletic, Pokemon Go, The Walking Dead: Our World, DU Recorder, Castbox, and many others. Some of the games are a little suspect. We might have added Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition over the much less enjoyable Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire. However, these are trending apps and games. Freemium games are free and generally get more downloads than premium games do. In any case, hit the link to see more!
• Niantic Labs re-branded Ingress this week. The newly minted Ingress Prime isn’t really much different from the original Ingress game. The UI received an update. Niantic also moved or removed some of the various UI elements and features. Faithful players weren’t too keen on the changes. Thus, they launched Scanner Redacted for fans of the old game. It’s a weird re-brand overall and we expected more of a change. However, with the Ingress anime having launched earlier this autumn, it’s not too surprising.
• Google released a new report this week. It says that Android is safer than it’s ever been. However, that declaration comes with some caveats. It’s only as safe as Google says as long as you use Google Play exclusively for downloading apps. Google Play is classically excellent for keeping the malware at a minimum. Other app stores and other sources simply can’t keep up. In any case, the number of potentially harmful apps (PHAs) drop every year and this year was no exception. Of course, that assumes you use Google’s Android experience.
• Blizzcon had some good surprises and bad ones. Among them was a new mobile Diablo game. It’s a mobile RPG with hack-and-slash elements and it takes place between the events of Diablo II and Diablo III. It’s developed by Blizzard along with Netease. Netease’s involvement likely means a freemium experience. That has irritated many of the loyal Diablo fanbase and we get it. However, it may get some casual fans back into the game because it has been so long since Diablo III came out. Blizzard is also working on Diablo IV so that should help curb the anger from the fanbase. The game is out for pre-registration now.

If we missed any big Android apps or games news, launches, or updates, tell us about them in the comments!