Key Takeaways
- Block Blast, an addictive block-stacking puzzler, is launching on Apple Arcade as Block Blast!+ on September 3, removing the ad breaks present in its free mobile version.
- Art of Fauna: Cozy Puzzles+, a gentler jigsaw-style game focused on wildlife and conservation, will also be available on Apple Arcade starting September 3, having won a 2025 App Store Award for Cultural Impact.
- Block Blast has achieved significant success, reportedly crossing 800 million downloads and being the most downloaded free iPhone app of 2025, with its core gameplay loop of clearing rows and columns maintained in the Arcade version.
If you own a smartphone and have somehow avoided Block Blast for the last two years, congratulations, you are either extremely disciplined or you simply do not touch grass-related apps. For everyone else, the addictive block-stacking puzzler is joining Apple Arcade on September 3, and this time it comes without the relentless ad breaks that usually interrupt your fifth attempt at a triple line clear. Alongside it lands Art of Fauna: Cozy Puzzles+, a gentler jigsaw-style game about wildlife that picked up a 2025 App Store Award for Cultural Impact. Together, the two titles mark one of Apple Arcade’s more interesting puzzle catalog updates in recent memory, and there is a lot to unpack for anyone tracking the Apple Arcade September 2026 update.
In This Article
What Block Blast Plus Actually Changes
Block Blast, developed by Hungry Studio, has quietly become one of the biggest mobile games on the planet. It reportedly crossed around 800 million downloads and was the most downloaded free iPhone app of 2025, a title it has apparently held onto well into this year. The concept is almost insultingly simple. Players drop block shapes onto a grid, clear full rows or columns, and chase increasingly satisfying combos. It is the kind of game that eats fifteen minutes of your commute and somehow becomes forty-five.
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The Arcade version, Block Blast!+, keeps that exact gameplay loop intact but strips out the ads and in-app purchases that fund the free version. For a game this habit-forming, removing the interruption might genuinely change how people play it, since half the annoyance of the original comes from ads popping up right when you are one move from a personal best.
Art of Fauna Brings a Calmer Kind of Puzzle
Art of Fauna: Cozy Puzzles+, created by developer Klemens Strasser, takes the opposite approach entirely. Instead of speed and combos, it offers slow, meditative jigsaw style puzzles built around nature illustrations, with small stories about wildlife and conservation unlocking as players progress. Apple has also highlighted its accessibility features, which the developer designed to make the puzzles approachable regardless of a player’s dexterity or visual needs.
More Puzzles and Updates Are Already Lined Up
Both new games slot into an Arcade puzzle lineup that already includes Grindstone, Flow Free+, Crossword Jam+, Everyday Puzzles: Mini Games+ and Water Sort Puzzle: Get Color+. Apple is not stopping there either. Puffies is adding 28 new sticker packs on August 12, Simon’s Cat – Blast Time is rolling out 200 new levels across August, starting on the 20th, and Stitch is celebrating its 800th unique embroidery hoop design on August 26.
September 3 also brings a wider wave of additions beyond the two puzzle games, including NFL Retro Bowl ’27 with a new Gauntlet Mode, Coloring Games for Families+ with more than 3,000 activities, and Let’s Play! Oink Games+, a digital bundle of nine tabletop-style games playable solo or with friends.
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Pricing and How to Access It
Apple Arcade continues to be priced at roughly Rs 99 per month ($1 approx in the USA) in India, with a one-month free trial for new subscribers, and buyers of a new iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV get three months free. It is also bundled into Apple One’s Individual and Family plans. The subscription covers a family of up to six people and works across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Vision Pro, though availability can vary slightly depending on the device and region.
