The usual way to find out whether a game will run on an ageing iPhone is to install it and see. There is a faster way, and it is printed on every App Store listing: the minimum iOS version the app will accept. It is a hard floor rather than a recommendation — below it, the store will not let you install at all.
Across the sixteen games in our directory that number turns out to be lower than most people assume, and it clusters tightly.
Check your own version first
On an iPhone or iPad, open Settings › General › About and read the Software Version line. That number is what the table below is comparing against. If your phone is on a newer version than the one listed for a game, the operating system is not what is standing in your way.
What the sixteen listings say
Read from Apple's lookup service on 13 August 2026, for the United States storefront. The size column is the download the listing reports.
| Game | Minimum iOS | Download |
|---|---|---|
| AFK Journey | 11.0 | 1.31 GB |
| Mobile Legends: Bang Bang | 12.0 | 354 MB |
| Genshin Impact | 13.0 | 3.71 GB |
| Honkai: Star Rail | 13.0 | 3.75 GB |
| PUBG MOBILE | 13.0 | 3.98 GB |
| Brawl Stars | 14.0 | 1.81 GB |
| Clash Royale | 14.0 | 1.05 GB |
| Roblox | 14.0 | 244 MB |
| Wuthering Waves | 14.0 | 2.42 GB |
| Zenless Zone Zero | 14.0 | 3.73 GB |
| Call of Duty: Mobile | 15.0 | 2.84 GB |
| Clash of Clans | 15.0 | 649 MB |
| MARVEL SNAP | 15.0 | 349 MB |
| MONOPOLY GO! | 15.0 | 281 MB |
| Pokémon GO | 15.0 | 412 MB |
| Pokémon TCG Pocket | 15.0 | 766 MB |
The spread is four minor versions wide, from iOS 11.0 at the bottom to iOS 15.0 at the top, and nothing on the list goes above that. The pattern is not what you would guess from the games themselves either: the heaviest downloads here sit on some of the lowest floors, while several of the smallest apps ask for the newest OS.
What changed since this table was first published
This article first ran on 27 July 2026 with the same sixteen listings read the same way. Re-reading them seventeen days later found two figures that had moved enough to matter, which is the clearest available argument for treating any table like this as a reading rather than a fact.
- MONOPOLY GO! raised its floor from iOS 13.3 to iOS 15.0. In July it was the only game here sitting on a point release rather than a round one, and an iPhone on iOS 13.3 or later could install it. It is now level with the highest floor in the set, which is a two-version jump in under three weeks. Nothing announced it; the listing simply says something different than it did.
- Pokémon TCG Pocket more than doubled its download, from 366 MB to 766 MB. It was among the smallest installs here and is no longer.
The rest moved by rounding or not at all. Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero each grew by around 180 MB, Clash Royale by 20 MB, and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Pokémon GO both got slightly smaller. No other game changed the version it requires.
The OS floor and the hardware demand are different questions
It is tempting to read the minimum version as a proxy for how demanding a game is. It is not. A publisher sets that floor around the frameworks the app needs and the audience it is willing to drop, which is a business decision as much as a technical one — a game with hundreds of millions of installs has more to lose by cutting off old devices than a new release does.
What actually stops an older phone
- Free storage. The download column above is the starting point, not the finish. Several of these games pull down substantial extra data after first launch, and a phone that is nearly full will fail partway through an update rather than at install time.
- Heat. Phones slow themselves down when they get hot, so long sessions get worse the longer they run. This is the limit people actually hit, and it has nothing to do with which iOS you are on.
- Update headroom. A live game needs free space to apply an update on top of the space it already occupies. Sitting at a few hundred megabytes free is how you end up unable to launch a game you had been playing fine.
Both of the first two have their own guides here: why mobile games eat your storage, and what is safe to delete, and how to stop mobile games draining your battery, which is largely a guide to keeping a phone cool enough to keep going.
A note on Android
This table is iOS only, deliberately. Google Play states Android requirements in a form that varies by device rather than as a single comparable number, so lining the two up in one table would produce a comparison the underlying data does not support. If you are on Android, the store listing for your specific device is the answer, and it is the only one worth trusting.
How we worked this out
Minimum OS versions and download sizes were read from a single Apple iTunes Lookup API request covering the sixteen games in the PhonePlayers directory, for the United States storefront, on the access date recorded in Sources. The sizes are what each listing reports for the download itself; several of these games fetch substantial additional data on first launch, which no store listing states. Nothing here is a performance measurement — no device was tested for this article.
Sources
- Apple iTunes Lookup API — the sixteen apps in the table, US storefront (opens in a new tab) — Apple (accessed )
- Apple iTunes Lookup API — the same sixteen apps, US storefront, first reading (opens in a new tab) — Apple (accessed )
- MONOPOLY GO! on the App Store — compatibility line (opens in a new tab) — Apple (accessed )
Corrections and updates
Updates
- — Table re-read from the same sixteen listings. MONOPOLY GO! raised its minimum from iOS 13.3 to iOS 15.0 and Pokémon TCG Pocket's download grew from 366 MB to 766 MB; six other sizes moved slightly. The July reading is kept in Sources as the basis for the new "what changed" section.
