Apple"s relaxation of the App Store policy to allow retro game emulators on its marketplace opened the floodgates for developers to push their emulators onto the App Store. We saw the arrival of the iGBA Game Boy emulator, which was removed because of a violation of Apple"s rules regarding spam and intellectual property.
Provenance Emulator then arrived on the App Store, letting users play games on their iPhones from consoles like the NES, SNES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, and even Atari, Sega, and PlayStation to the iPhone. We also saw the Delta emulator launch for both iPhones and later, the iPad. Recently, a PS1 (PlayStation 1) emulator, Gamma, launched for iPhone and iPad, letting users play games on their iPhones and iPads with Bluetooth and wired controllers.
RetroArch, a free, open source, and versatile emulator frontend, has debuted on the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. Being an emulator frontend, you can play games from over 50 gaming consoles.
The list is too long, from the Atari 2600 to the Commodore - Amiga to the Nintendo - DS to the Sony - PlayStation Portable. With support for a multitude of retro gaming consoles, RetroArch offers retro game lovers a vast library of games to play on their Apple devices.
Though RetroArch offers retro games, it packs a bunch of modern features. Netplay lets you have online multiplayer sessions, and soft patching allows for game modifications. Some of the other notable features include save states, MFI controller support, key remapping and customization options, gyro controls, cheats and custom overlay support, and much more.
RetroArch was previously available for Windows and Mac, it was just waiting for Apple to change the App Store rules to debut for iPhones and iPads. It is also the first emulator that works on Apple TVs and supports playing games using the MFI controller right on your big screen.
There are a few caveats, though. RetroArch requires you to manually transfer the game files (ROMs). Besides, some of the emulation cores of RetroArch, present in other platform versions, are missing on the iOS version.
You can download RetroArch for free on the App Store. Make sure you have devices running iOS/iPadOS 14.2 or tvOS 11.0 and later to run this retro game emulator. Moreover, it also supports the Vision Pro headset.