Bandai Namco has released the best Katamari Damacy since the PS2. Just one problem: It’s exclusive to Apple Arcade.

Chances are the first time you hear of an Apple Arcade game, it’s because it’s being ported. Air Twister, Fantasian, Hello Kitty Island Adventure – they’ve all escaped Apple’s ephemeral service, and have been all the better for it. While many don’t know it, some of the best games of the last half-decade have started life on Apple’s gaming subscription service. Some are even lucky enough to be given a new lease on life outside of the service. Some, but by no means all.

Last month, Bandai Namco released Katamari Damacy: Rolling Live to Apple Arcade. It is the first truly original Katamari Damacy release in nearly 15 years. Funnily enough, the last truly original release for the series was Katamari Amore, which was released on iOS in 2011. It was delisted from the App Store in 2015.

Rolling Live‘s concept revolves around the King of the Cosmos, despondent about his lack of popularity in the modern age, taking up a career as a livestream influencer, sharing the Prince of the Cosmos and their cousin’s escapades by rolling up Katamaris. Each level is framed as a collaboration with a fellow influencer, with the followers gained from your successes allowing you the clout for more engaging and extravagant collaborations. As is series tradition, Rolling Live is paired with one of the best soundtracks to grace gaming as a medium.

Set dressings aside, Rolling Live is everything you might expect from a mainline Katamari Damacy. Alongside the traditional levels that simply ask you to roll up as large a Katamari as possible within a time limit comes several more specific challenges; one asks you not to roll up as large a Katamari as possible, but rather tasks the player with rolling through a convenience store, racking up as large a bill as you can Every item comes with a price tag, and the larger an item doesn’t necessarily denote a similarly large price. Another asks you to clean up a bath house by rolling up muck and grime – dunking your Katamari in water when it gets too dirty, or rolling up cleaning supplies to enlarge your Katamari and cleanse it in one sweep. Inventive ideas that turn the gameplay on its head, without actively sidestepping what made the original games so great.

I played Rolling Live on an Apple TV 4K — the 2021 model, to be exact. Paired with a controller over Bluetooth, you’d be hard-pressed to even realize this was a Katamari you could also play on your iPhone. This is nothing new when it comes to Apple Arcade; arguably, it’s the point. Instead of making games designed to extract as much money out of us with microtransactions as possible, these are a glimpse at what mobile games might’ve been like if things had gone differently in the early 2010s when they first took off. A glimpse at a better future, grasped in the monkey’s paw of being tied to a subscription service.

With We Love Katamari REROLL + Rolling Reverie being my most recent memory of the franchise — an HD remaster of the 2nd game in the series, and the last of the franchise to release on the PlayStation 2 — it feels almost appropriate that Rolling Live could masquerade as a lost 3rd entry on the platform. If not for the mechanical keyboard keycaps, Apple Watches, and other such items betraying that this game did in fact release in 2025, the illusion might have lasted. Besides running at a higher resolution, the fidelity of the models and textures match that of the modern Katamari remasters quite closely. The same can be said for the controls.

In two to three years’ time, there’s every possibility Rolling Live will live again, and receive the attention it deserves among a wider audience. There’s also every possibility it will be when its story ends. This month alone tells the tale of two Apple Arcade exclusives; Air Twister and Amazing Bomberman will both be delisted come the end of May 2025. While Air Twister was salvaged with a port to other platforms, Amazing Bomberman may only live on through its incredible soundtrack, which each of its game boards were themed around. Until we know an Apple Arcade game will receive a port, there’s no way to know if it will have a chance to live on. Katamari Damacy: Rolling Live might have been born dead. We can only hope that when push comes to shove, this Katamari gets to be turned into a star like all of its siblings — shining bright in the night sky, for all to see.

Score: 8