Which genres actually drain your battery

After a lot of testing with the same phone and a charged battery each time, some clear patterns showed up. Racing and fast action games are by far the hungriest, since they push the graphics chip hard and keep the screen bright and busy.

Turn-based RPGs and management sims sit at the opposite end. During quiet menu-heavy moments, the phone barely does any work, so a long session costs surprisingly little. Text-heavy adventures are kind to your battery too.

The sneaky middle ground is casual games with constant animations. Individually each effect is small, but leave them running for an hour and it adds up. This is where that effects toggle in the settings earns its keep.

If you're playing on a commute with no charger in sight, pick your genre to match. A long story game will outlast a racer by a mile. And whatever you're playing, dropping the brightness a notch does more than any in-game option.