Apple's Siri AI will be powered by Gemini Longtime fans of the franchise were disappointed in this latest installment. The App Store is a home for many kinds of apps (including, inexplicably, one that lets users undress strangers without their consent). But hey, it also has games! And soon the store's Apple Arcade service will include one more: the not-so-highly rated . Apple announced on Wednesday that will arrive almost exactly a year after launch . The game is already available for Apple devices, but its arrival on Apple Arcade will be a first.

Imagine a new racing video game. Whatever you've pictured, What the Car? is not it. In a world where racing games pride themselves on the ever-increasing detail and authenticity of their driving experiences, pushing the speedometer towards realism with cutting-edge game engines as well as perfectly simulated motor ones, this is the opposite. This car is literally running around on foot. Described as "an absurdly silly adventure full of racing, laughs, and surprises," What the Car? has you playing as a car with legs, sprinting and climbing through obstacles each more daft than the last, to get to the finish line.

For the third time in less than two years, I have COVID-19. Whenever an illness has forced me to stay in bed, my comfort food has been gaming. In 2009 I played through all of Assassin's Creed II in a feverish, swine flu-induced haze. When I was sick with COVID for the first time, I jumped into Red Dead Redemption 2 blind, and found a story about sickness and human mortality. Now, during one of the most stacked years in recent gaming history, I find myself under the covers not with Starfield, Spider-Man 2 or any of the other big fall releases.

If you subscribe to Apple Arcade ($5, £5 or AU$8 a month), you can play this game at no additional charge, and without ads or in-app purchases, which is why this version is called "Stardew Valley Plus." This game was developed by ConcernedApe. It was nominated for a handful of awards in 2016 and won the Golden Joystick Awards's Breakthrough Award that same year. Stardew Valley opens with you leaving your office job and moving back to your grandfather's rundown farm with the hope of living a simpler life. But if you scratch beneath the surface you'll find that this game is anything but simple. Sure, you can stay on your land as you grow crops, raise animals and fix your home, but there's so much to do in Stardew Valley Plus.

Apple has revealed the games that are coming to Apple Arcade in July and the company has a stacked lineup in store for subscribers. A trifecta of classic indies are on the way to the service very soon in the form of Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire and Ridiculous Fishing. The latter is particularly intriguing, as Apple says it's "a full and expanded remaster" of the original game, which was an Apple Design Award winner. Ridiculous Fishing EX, to give the new version its full name, is now in 3D. You'll use unusual fishing gear such as chainsaws and toasters to try and land fish in an open sea.

Games follow a seasonal rhythm, and perhaps because I have spent my career writing about them (take that, school careers advisor!), Absolutely nothing happens in winter, ever. Spring is often when the most interesting games appear – the slightly offbeat big releases or ambitious indie games that want to make a splash after the Christmas rush. In summer, E3 and Gamescom and all of the other showcases look ahead to the future. Autumn is truly the season of games, when the Fifas and Call of Dutys and Assassin's Creeds come out, and everything else either competes with them for attention, or scrambles to get away. The world's biggest games convention, Gamescom, marks the shift between summer and autumn.

"Cooking Mama: Cuisine!" from developer Office Create Corp. arrived on Apple Arcade in June, but it's still a relatively fresh release. The game starts players off with a few ingredients that can be combined to make different, discoverable recipes. There aren't that many recipes to unlock yet, though, as users must log in daily to receive new ingredients. The recipes so far seem to be more savory than in some of the previous Cooking Mama titles, and span a wide range of cuisines.

If you have yet to set foot in the Apple Arcade, then perhaps it's time you did. Apple Arcade is an easy and affordable way to play popular games on your iPhone and other Apple devices. It may not be the most popular gaming subscription service, but it has reshaped mobile gaming to some extent, and it is home to a handful of excellent exclusives. Whether you subscribe to Apple Arcade or PlayStation Plus, you can elevate your gaming experience with some of our other buying guides, from the Best Gaming Headsets to the Best Mobile Game Controllers. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off).

Skate by off-limit areas, tagging aims and evading the guard – that's what Subway Surfers Tag is all about. The sport debuted Friday on the Apple Arcade gaming service. Subway Surfers Tag challenges gamers to free skate over the retired trains within the railyard, play within the park after darkish, choose up some power-ups on the cargo docks or examine the mysterious underground. And the cleanup bots attempting to take away your tags should be stopped. However there's extra to fret about than gravity and some bots.

During the pandemic, video games have had an unprecedented boom while pretty much every other cultural sector – from music and nightlife to theatre and cinema – have tanked. With everyone stuck inside looking for ways to alleviate their boredom and socialise safety, it is no wonder that the global games market grew from $150bn in 2019 to $180bn in 2020 (£). Millions of people bought consoles (the Nintendo Switch especially saw a huge surge); and some of us who already had consoles felt like a shiny new PlayStation 5, say, might alleviate the pandemic blues for a while. Every facet of gaming, from mobile to consoles, Twitch viewership to concurrent Steam player numbers, was given a boost. It's also hardly surprising, then, that the games industry is now facing a contraction.