Life is Strange, Honkai Impact 3rd & Octopath Traveler
Five games joined the catalogue this week, and most of them are here for the story. A teenage drama from the Life is Strange series, an anime action RPG that has been running since 2016 and the mobile prequel to Octopath Traveler lead the list. Behind them come a dot puzzle that has been on the App Store since 2014 and a prank show that started on PC in 2003. Each one makes you pay or wait somewhere, whether it’s episodes sold one by one, lives that run out or gacha drops. These builds take some of that away. No subscriptions, no waiting. Download any of them as an IPA and install on your iPhone in one tap, no PC and no developer account of your own.
Life is Strange: Before the Storm
Before the Storm is the prequel to Life is Strange. Deck Nine developed it, Square Enix published it, and the three episodes came out on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC between August and December 2017. The iPhone version followed on 19 September 2018. You play 16-year-old Chloe Price in Arcadia Bay, Oregon, and the story is about her friendship with Rachel Amber. It’s a choice-driven adventure. You talk, explore and make decisions, and Chloe’s Backtalk lets her argue her way out of a situation or make it a lot worse. The British band Daughter wrote the score. The bonus episode, Farewell, brings back Max Caulfield from the original game. Before the Storm won Game of the Year at the Games for Change awards.
On the App Store the game is free to download, but the story is sold in parts: $2.99 per episode, $7.99 for a season pass covering episodes one to three, and $1.99 for the bonus episode.
What’s unlocked: the full game, with no episode purchases standing between you and the ending. The original Life is Strange joined the catalogue last month, if you’d rather start with Max’s story.
Honkai Impact 3rd
Long before Honkai: Star Rail, miHoYo made this. Honkai Impact 3rd launched in China on 14 October 2016 and worldwide on 28 March 2018, and it still holds 4.7 stars from about 47,000 ratings on the US App Store. It’s a real-time 3D action game. You take a team of up to three Valkyries into a fight and swap between them mid-battle, and a perfectly timed dodge briefly freezes time for a counterattack. Biologic, Psychic and Mecha types beat each other in a rock-paper-scissors loop, so team building matters as much as reflexes. The first story arc follows Kiana Kaslana. Part 2, which began in February 2024, is set on Mars and added an open world. Some of the cast, like Welt, Himeko and Bronya, later turned up in Star Rail. Version 9.1.0, the one in this build, adds the Herrscher of Time battlesuit and a new Part 2 afterstory.
New Valkyries, weapons and Stigmata come from gacha Supply drops, and the Crystals that pay for them start at $4.99 for 330 on the App Store.
What’s unlocked: attack and defense multipliers, so your Valkyries hit harder and take less damage. It’s an online game, so the usual caution with a modified client applies: don’t use it on an account you can’t afford to lose. A separate build for the Southeast Asia server arrived this week too.
Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent
Octopath Traveler came out on Nintendo Switch in July 2018 and sold more than three million copies. Champions of the Continent is its mobile prequel, developed by Acquire. Square Enix released it in Japan in October 2020 and in the West in July 2022, and since January 2025 the global version has been run by NetEase. The setting is Orsterra again, ruled by three villains who each hold a divine ring of wealth, power or fame, and the three main storylines follow them. It keeps the series’ HD-2D look, pixel-art characters inside 3D scenes, and Yasunori Nishiki’s music, recorded live. The biggest change is party size: battles take up to eight travellers instead of four, drawn from eight jobs from Warrior to Cleric. The current version 4.8.2 runs a Romancing SaGa 2 collaboration. In December 2025 Square Enix reused this story for Octopath Traveler 0 on consoles and PC, without the gacha.
The cheat names come from the series’ battle system. In Octopath Traveler, hitting an enemy’s weakness enough times breaks its shield, so it loses its next turn and takes more damage, and Boost points let a character strike several times in one turn.
What’s unlocked: a cheat menu with damage and defense multipliers, infinite SP, infinite Boost, Instant Break and unlimited gold. With Instant Break, shields go down straight away; the changelog sums it up as always being your turn. The game runs online through NetEase’s servers, so play it on an account you’re prepared to lose.
Two Dots
Playdots released Two Dots on 29 May 2014 as the follow-up to its first game, Dots, and it has been updated ever since. The App Store lists more than 5,000 levels, a 4.5 rating from about 174,000 ratings and an Editors’ Choice badge. The rule fits in one line. You draw a line through two or more neighbouring dots of the same colour, and closing a loop clears every dot of that colour on the board. Around the main map there are separate modes such as Scavenger Hunt, Treasure Hunt and Flip. Two Dots won the People’s Voice award for best handheld game at the 2015 Webby Awards.
The limits are moves and lives, and the shop sells both: 10 extra moves for $1.99, a lives refill for $0.99.
What’s unlocked: infinite lives, infinite moves and frozen power-ups, so your power-up count doesn’t go down when you use them.
Neighbours from Hell
JoWooD released Neighbours from Hell on PC in 2003, and THQ Nordic, which now owns the series, ported it to iPhone in May 2017 as Season 1. The premise is a reality TV show. You play Woody, who sneaks around the house of his neighbour, Mr. Rottweiler, and sets up pranks while cameras film everything. The more elaborate the chain of pranks, the higher the ratings. Each episode is a small stealth puzzle: learn his routine, sabotage objects on his path, and hide in a wardrobe or under a bed when he comes back. His parrot and his guard dog can wreck the plan, and if he catches you, the show goes off air. Season 1 has 14 episodes, and the App Store version holds 3.9 stars from about 2,000 ratings.
The download is free, and the App Store sells the full set of episodes as one $3.99 in-app purchase.
What’s unlocked: premium access, the paid part of the game, without the purchase. Season 2, based on the 2004 sequel where the pranks move to locations around the world, arrived the same day with the same unlock.
How to install
All five install from builds.io the way a normal App Store download does: tap GET, install, play. No PC, and no developer account of your own to keep alive. The first time you add a device, Apple runs a one-time “processing” step. Most devices are ready within a day, and some take up to three while Apple works through the queue. It happens once, and every install after it is instant.
Last week’s new arrivals were led by another HoYoverse game and a Gameloft racer: Asphalt Legends, Honkai: Star Rail and JoJo Golden Spirit. For the rest of the games we carry and what each build changes, see the hacked games list for iPhone.