Sierra brings Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions to mobile

Publisher Activision restarted the defunct Sierra to produce smaller, downloadable games on PC and console, and now it’s also working on mobile.

Sierra announced today that it is unleashing its Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions dual-stick shooter on iOS … which I guess would technically make it a “no stick” shooter. This brings the leaderboard-chasing, neon-drenched arcade action to iPhone and iPad for the first time ever. You can download the game now for $5. This marks not only the first time that Geometry Wars has made the leap to mobile, but it’s also Sierra’s first game on touchscreen smart devices.

Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions is the latest entry in a series that started on the Xbox 360. Despite its old-school gameplay and humble beginnings as a minigame in developer Bizarre Creations’ Project Gotham Racing 2, the shooter’s intense action caught on with a big crowd. Its appeal only grew larger when Bizarre spun Geometry Wars: Evolved out into its own downloadable Xbox Live Arcade release.

Now, Dimensions, from developer Lucid Games — which comprises many former Bizarre Creations developers — builds on those older games by adding a deeper single-player mode.

And it’s that single-player adventure, which gives gamers several challenging levels to conquer that probably convinced Sierra that Geometry Wars was ready for the mobile treatment. The series previously lived and died on its competitive nature with friends always trying to one-up each other, but Dimensions backed off from that slightly.

But even if Geometry Wars 3 is better suited to touchscreen devices than previous games in the series, Sierra and Lucid aren’t changing the way it works to make it free-to-play. That $5 price, which is a small number on traditional platforms like PC and console, is unusual for smartphones. But it’s possible that Sierra and Lucid want to test the series out on iOS before investing to heavily in new ways of generating revenue from in-app purchases and advertising.