Retro Bowl College+ brings old-school college football to the service with its unlocked paid features and no in-app purchases.
Apple Arcade added another soccer game to its roster on August 6, but this one is considerably less interested in photorealistic turf. Retro Bowl College+ is Apple Arcade’s version of New Star Games’ college football spinoff 2023, and it puts you in charge of one of more than 250 teams while retaining the series’ chunky pixel art and deliberately old-school approach.
The football itself is refreshingly simple. You drag a quarterback backwards to aim for a pass, slide to move a ball carrier, and handle kicks with equally simple gestures, while the game leaves the defensive side largely to simulation.
Between practices, however, there’s a lot more to worry about: Players have grades and morale, facilities can be improved, budgets need attention, and your college athletes can apparently cause headaches even when no one is trying to play them.
The plus sign matters here
Retro Bowl College+
The regular version of Retro bowl college is free on the App Store, but it includes a $0.99 unlimited version as well as coaching credit packs ranging from $1.99 to $9.99. Retro Bowl College+ ignores this configuration. Its Apple Arcade version starts with the expanded 12-player roster, kick returns, detailed team and conference editor, and Exhibition mode already unlocked without any ads or in-app purchases.
There’s also something here for people who already packed an unhealthy number of fake Saturdays into the original version. A new League Style option allows players to change standings, conference alignments, and available teams to match league structures from previous years, while the game includes updated league data for 2026. You can start a career with an earlier setup and apply these changes as seasons progress. The regular App Store version has since also received League Style.
The Apple Arcade soccer bench is also crowded. Madden NFL 27 Arcade Edition is now on the service, while another game New Star, NFL Retro Bowl ’27is scheduled for September 3.
Retro Bowl’s old-school roots run deeper than pixels
Retro styling has been built into this series from day one. New Star Games released the original Retro bowl on mobile in January 2020, with studio creator Simon Read saying that revisiting Tecmo football games from the 80s and 90s “was all the inspiration I needed…” for his take on American football.
Retro bowl college followed in September 2023, keeping the action easy to understand while adding college-specific management issues such as recruiting, limited budgets and tracking player GPAs. This mixture is still visible in College+. Its smaller players may look like they escaped from a much older console, but practice screens can allow you to balance purses, facilities and player development before the next kickoff.
So which one Retro bowl is the best? It mostly depends on which headache seems more fun. The original focuses on professional football, College adds recruiting and academic management, while NFL editions feature licensed NFL teams and players. Apple Arcade now offers the entire Retro Bowl series, according to New Star Games.
