Smoother on every phone. Skyward now adapts to the phone it is running on. It picks the right amount of detail for your device, holds a steady frame rate, and climbs at 120 frames a second on screens that support it. It also uses less battery. The menus stop redrawing what is not moving, the screen can sleep again outside a climb, and the game eases off before your phone gets warm. New in Settings: Graphics. Leave it on Auto, choose Saver to make a charge last longer, or Smooth for the highest frame rate your screen allows.

Book II: the climb goes to 300. Seven new leagues above the Aether — Sunscorch Dunes, Ember Forge, Rosewater Cloister, Gull Point, Starfall Observatory, Quicksilver Halls and The Dawn Crown. Each has its own sky and its own liquid, and Book II brings its own ways to kill you: stairs that burn under your feet, deep sand that holds you, bridges lit one span at a time, a tide that breathes, and levels where you are racing a clock as well as the water. Endless is a different mode now. Stages rotate through the leagues you have unlocked, every stage gate stops you to choose one of three boons, your score counts combo and pickups as well as floors, and there is a weekly tower everybody climbs from the same seed. The daily streak keeps going past day seven, and it keeps itself safe for a couple of days if life gets in the way. The home screen follows your own clock, from morning through to night. Still no ads, and no advertising identifier — the code for them is gone from the build entirely.