FTL: Faster Than Light
Step into the gaming world with FTL: Faster Than Light, one of the top $9.99 games in the App Store! Crafted with creativity and innovation by Subset Games, LLC, this captivating Strategy game is bound to grab your attention. With its content rating of 9+, it caters to a wide audience. Ever since its release on 3rd April 2014, it has been constantly updated, with the latest version rolled out on 5th October 2021.
Whether you have a liking for Strategy, Simulation, games, FTL: Faster Than Light is sure to keep you hooked!
User Ratings
Join the crowd of 711 gamers who have given their verdict on FTL: Faster Than Light.
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Dive into FTL: Faster Than Light
The award winning PC spaceship simulation game from Subset Games comes to iPad! Includes the free expansion, FTL: Advanced Edition, which adds new ships, enemies, events, weapons, and more!
PC version’s awards include:
- IGN – Game Of the Year Nominee 2012
- PC Gamer – 2012 Best Short-Form Game
- Indie Game Festival 2013 – Excellence in Design
- Indie Game Festival 2013 – Audience Award
- Game Developers Choice Awards 2013 – Best Debut: Subset Games
In FTL you experience the atmosphere of running a spaceship trying to save the galaxy. It’s a dangerous mission, with every encounter presenting a unique challenge with multiple solutions. What will you do if a heavy missile barrage shuts down your shields? Reroute all power to the engines in an attempt to escape, power up additional weapons to blow your enemy out of the sky, or take the fight to them with a boarding party? This "spaceship simulation roguelike-like" allows you to take your ship and crew on an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy filled with glory and bitter defeat.
Key Features:
- Give orders to your crew, manage ship power distribution and choose weapon targets in the heat of battle.
- Pause the game mid-combat to evaluate your strategy and give orders.
- Upgrade your ship and unlock new ones with the help of seven diverse alien races.
- Hundreds of text based encounters will force you to make tough decisions.
- Each play-through will feature different enemies, events, and results to your decisions. No two play-throughs will be quite the same.
- Permadeath means when you die, there’s no coming back. The constant threat of defeat adds importance and tension to every action.
Website – www.FTLgame.com
Twitter – @FTLgame
NOTE: Only compatible with iPad 2 or newer — Will NOT run on iPad 1!
What’s Fresh in the Latest Update?
Discover what’s new in the recent update of FTL: Faster Than Light on 5th October 2021:
Update for newer iPad Mini support.
Hear from the Players – FTL: Faster Than Light Reviews
Find out what gamers are saying about FTL: Faster Than Light:
We bought this game when we were a kid, having saved up some money from lawn mowing. We recently noticed it was on the app store and decided to pick it up. It is the perfect game to play in between classes or when taking a break from work. Dont be fooled however. This game can be relaxing but it is far from easy. Once you start to unlock other ships you realize there are so many different play styles. You will have to learn the ins and outs if you want to come close to beating the final boss. Our tips: – Make getting a second shield your first priority – Dont rely too much on missiles, use them to take out key systems before finishing them off with other weapons – Target the enemys weapons first. Take out their shields if you cannot get through them, target their pilot if they keep dodging – Manage your power well! Do not keep your medbay powered unless you need to heal, and you can de-power your oxygen if you need a quick boost – Shields and engine are priority upgrades. If you have the extra scrap, level up doors, oxygen, and pilot so you have a damage buffer – Your main objective is to avoid damage. Scraps you spend on repair could have been better spent on upgrades One of our favorite games from our childhood. Still holds up, and there is nothing like the feeling you get when you finally beat if for the first time.
All right. Im redoing this review. We love this game. We used to complain that you could not get mods on mobile, but then we found out you could. We could not find the exact way, but we found out that you could. If you could share the way, that would be great. For now, Im just using mods on the computer. But its kind of frustrating to get the mouse out, clear room on the table, and then load the game. We think the crystal cruiser is awesome! Love the crystal weapons.
Years later, as all other mobile games have fallen away from playability, FTL holds strong. One of the most well balanced, well crafted video games we’ve ever played. Simple, yet deep; immense, even. Every sound was meticulously crafted. They somehow made, in lofi, the most realistic feeling space survival game out there. Excellent work.
We love this game (I found out it was on the iPad) no we didnt get any victories but we just think its fun roast us if you think Im bad at the game but the game is really fun we know theres not gonna be a developers response (because of Subnautica ) [I know you created Subnautica] the Music is overall banger (thats the main reason why we like the game) (I just decided to type this before we played the game again)
One of our favorite indie games of all time, FTL is a joy to play on iPad and the developers keep updating the app so it looks great on all of the new iPad dimensions. Also, the soundtrack is fantastic.
We remember playing this game years ago, still as fun as we remember it. Some sort of cloud support would definitely be appreciated, we remember having a lot of progress on a previous account, and we would love to use that one again.
We originally gave a review, but now we need to address the one star reviewers of this game, a lot of the strategy is knowing what events happen, for example one review complained about the refusal to accept wares event, weve all had it, we all know it, you just need to get in the rhythm of the game, if you want a review listen to the fivers (stars) and not these ungrateful sinners towards this wonderful game, again if you want a review not listen to those hillbillies. Another note, there are clearly better and worse ships, but they all work, we have won with both the crenkov and the bulwark, all it needs is rather these hillbillies have no rythem.
FTL never gets old for us. We’ve been playing for at least 5 years, with long breaks and then suddenly remembering how fun it is. Playing as mantis and killing the entire ship without firing a shot is <chefs kiss>. Or the Vulcan cannon, pew pew! It does take a while to learn how to make the most out of the random encounters you will have. However, once you do its a blast trying to make a lethal ship out of whatever life gives you on that run.
Hard. Infinitely replay-able. Filled with quirks, humor, and depth that take the generative style to an entirely new level. This game is famous because its good, and its famous because its fun. Highest recommendation. If you like puzzles, if you like spaceships, if you like Star Wars, if you like Into The Breach (same team) or Hades or any other infinite generative replay game, you must play this. Id buy it for you if we could.
This game is phenomenal and the experience on iPad is seamless. A lot of care was put into this port.
We need it! FTL is amazing but ItB is a masterpiece!
We really wish game developers would implement a way to balance the randomness locally, just a bit. This game allows situations where even the best player will lose due to a string of poor luck. It doesn’t happen often, but it shouldn’t happen at all (in our opinion).
We have played this games for many years on computer, and it is one of the best single player games. Its not beginner friendly, but once you learned what to do, its a lot of fun, and there are so many different strategies. The game is also well build, and we have never experienced any significant bug or crashes. Its kind of rare these days to see a game that is so unique in term of design and gameplay, yet so well built and balanced.
This is by far one of the best games we have ever played, the art is amazing, the design is amazing, and the soundtrack is a bop. Its a very good rougelite and the variation between each playthrough keeps the gameplay fresh and rewarding, we’ve played this over 100 times and we have never beaten the game but we still love it. The controls on IPad are really nice and Id highly recommend getting it for the 2 dollars it costs because its absolutely worth it and its amazing for long car rides or for just playing a game by yourself, it doesnt even need WiFi which can be a big plus as well. 10/10 game, would get absolutely demolished by the final boss again.
Absolutely love this game but we were extremely disappointed when pulling the game up for the first time in a long while only to find all our unlocked ships were gone and we have to unlock it all again.
For as many times as you restart it would be great if you could speed up the game when you want. Fun game, but boring until you progress a little.
We love the idea of this game but come on!!! Easy mode is soooo hard. We are just wondering what hard must be like!!! Reduce things a bit so that we can at least get to the big boss once!!
This version of the game is our favorite because we can pick it up and put it down for a few minutes at a time. The only problem is that repositioning crew placement inside of a room is impossible with the crystal crew unless their lockdown power is recharging. The huge blue P button that appears above their head will trigger the lockdown if you press anywhere near it. This makes it impossible to click on the room that the crystal crew members are currently standing in without activating the lockdown power, which makes it impossible to change whos fighting whom during a boarding scenario. Please add an option to hide this button, as there is already a lockdown button in the crew list on the left where it has always been.
We love the devs other game Into the Breach, and this game definitely has polishbut the design is not fun. Its not difficulty; its just unfair overall and feels like it tries SO HARD not to be fun.
Its a fun game if you hate having fun.
This poorly developed games source code has been reviewed. The mechanics arent thought out to provide potential tangents. Its a very poorly coded game with basic RNG and events that actually ensure that you have a chance of playing games that are futile. Its not difficult. It doesnt throw you curveballs. Its just a badly made game that has higher than average chances of null gameplay where the entertainment value is convoluted with challenge, where in actuality its just serving players poor quality playthroughs that are lackluster to the point of not really being entitled to any reference of procedural generation as the curation was mainly in the quest writing; the remainder of the gameplay is terribly dull, repetitive, and generally asinine. Realistically. If our ship is out of fuel, and our only option is to request help via a beacon – we have started restarting the game. Of course you have a chance at help. But if theres also the much higher potential of pressing the button 5-7 times in a row to wait turns where nothing happens, it seems more logical to quit the game and save the time wasted playing something that isnt so much a game but a badly devised pinball machine with text and flying 2d sprites. (Not the ships though, nothing avtually really moves in this lazytrash game from years ago. They were lucky to have released this when they did as it would not pick up today. It really shows since this game was the only one mildly remarkable as it copied the roguelike aspects of other games. The theme is boring and so is the game; we guess someone else will make a original version to just erase this from existence)
After playing this game a few times we have figured out how to pretty consistently (80%ish of the time) make it to the battle with the flagship. Then it goes to crap. It doesnt matter what we do, the flagship completely destroys us. We found out by checking the wiki that the flagship has three levels. We cant even come close to beating the first one after playing the game at least 15-20 times. This wouldnt be so bad, except that you have to beat the flagship to unlock other ships, with one exception. This means there is a ton of content locked behind an impossible task. We are very glad we got this on sale for $1.99. Its not worth more, nor is it worth more of our time to unlock content we paid for.
This game is more frustration than fun. Its more likely than not that you will run into situations that your ship cant possibly overcome. Either a lack of available resources or enemys with abilities that far exceed your own, especially early in the game and even on easy mode. That really saps the fun out this one for us.
We first bought this game on Steam on the PC and played it for weeks before we finally won. Been playing it on iPad ever since it came out. We dont know why we love this game, but we do. We cant think of a game we play more often.
Could you please add iCloud support for the save files?
We will forever play this game. It is as entertaining, strategic and simple as you could want. This game is excellent.
Overall the game play is fine, but its all a bit too rushed and you never seem to get enough time to collect the resources you need to have a chance at beating the final boss. Players should be given a little more time to explore and acquire resources in each sector they pass through. Otherwise, they miss about half of the planets most times.
After the sun goes red giant, when the last embers of the ash that was earth cool, and humanity is either no more or far flung among the stars, this will still be the one game could have on your iPad/tablet/mindchip and play for your entire life. Before it was only 4 stars, lacking support for larger resolutions but still perfect in form. With the latest update, its straight to 5. All other games may come and go, but this is the millennial version of chess. FTL on iPad is the most perfect game that can, will ever exist on this platform. Nuff said.
Unlimited replay value, been playing for years and still using the same ship. Eventually Ill try some other play styles but for now the one ship is more than enough to keep us busy. THIS. IS. NOT. AN. EASY. GAME. Move on if you want hand holding and stress less gameplay. FTL will infuriate you. FTL will beat you down. Are you an hour in with a build you think is great? Boom, that ship is now toast, start over. We might honestly still be playing this game in ten years, its that good. Best experienced with Ipad and Apple Pencil.
Incredible game, logged tons of hours in it. Plays wonderfully with touch screen.
When we started this game we thought it was the best, then it got more and more boring.
Crashes if you access the control center. Crashes when you have audio already playing in the background, say from Safari or YouTube app. Fix the bugs please!!!
We get the desire to internationalize the game with different language support. But having icons for everything instead of text is really annoying for long time users of the game (almost 10 years!), and it reminds us of Idiocracy. Please add a menu option that would re-enable the old text UI.
What a very, very unfortunate decision to update this once almost-classic game. Cannot win even on easy. Deleting from our iPad.
This is our favorite game of all time. The replayability is insane and Im still finding new things that we didnt know about to this day, hundreds of hours in. You made our day with an aspect ratio update to recent models of iPads. We appreciate the developers for creating such a masterpiece for all to enjoy. Thank you!
One of the best iPad games of all time. Hours and hours of enjoyment. Sure its challenging, but that just makes it all that more rewarding when you figure it out.
The gameplay is great as it is on the pc version; although mildly inferior in that UI is somewhat slow in areas(particularly power management). This said, if you dont want something difficult it may be best to ovoid this one. The most common criticism of the game is almost certainly the not too subtle use of rng; this is valid to a point, but is, in our opinion, blown quite out of proportion. The soundtrack is excellent and the writing and story is competent but Minimal. If anyone has actually read through this wall of text consider us shocked.
Death here is meaningful. It’s permanence makes the game more than frustrating, especially when a chance encounter leaves your ship ablaze just after flawlessly dispatching your last foe. It’s an ego equalizer that masochists will enjoy, and anyone else who enjoys a challenge. In the pain, and the scornful roll of the die that doles our random encounters is a satisfaction. Players experience the payoff after a hard fought ‘good’ run or an actual victory. Luck and sharp skills are required for success in space. We’ve enjoyed this game for 4+ years now and it’s still a joy to pick up. If you are still reading then give it a try.
Of all of the games that were reported to not work in the future this was the only one we were sad about. It made us very happy it was updated to 64bit support. We love this game. Thanks for the update!
When we first started playing, we could never beat the boss. Now after playing it MANY hours, we have better techniques/choices that allow us to win almost every time. So far we’ve beaten the boss on easy mode with all ships (even slug type B which we saved for last and took two attempts)This game is completely skill and knowing which choices to choose (some will 100% be bad, so losing crew members or taking hull damage is your fault). We’ve also gotten to sector 8 without firing a shot, teleporting, or using ANY drones, so dont complain about dying in sector 2 because its your lack of skill. In total we have 8 wins on normal mode and aiming for one win on hard. We Highly suggest this game if your up to the challenge.
A little hard but very fun and worth it.
Easy mode= hard mode Medium mode= extremely hard mode Hard mode= impossible mode This game is super hard, and super fun too. Totally worth every penny!
This is the best game on iOS. We don’t even think we’re exaggerating. EDIT 5/25/17: YAY! Now FTL will work forever!
This game is fantastic! It really is!
We see people complaining about the difficulty and just dont understand the complaint. We’ve clocked over 200 hours easy over the years and still only beat the last boss a handful of times but each time we do feels like a massive achievement. Anyways, in our opinion this is an extremely unique game and worth every cent. In fact, the game is a steal. This developer brings innovation to the market. For those having trouble, make sure to learn everything in the game – all room types, weapons, characters, etc. And that helps to adjust to anything the game throws at you. We only wish we could give FTL more than 5 stars.
You pay for the game and you own everything it has to offer.
For people who think this is too hard, you dont understand the game. Its not about killing the final ship, its about progressing through the different missions. We made the same mistake, thinking the game was all about one boss battle, but thats not correct. The game is about using different ships to achieve different objectives and unlocking new ships and therefore new objectives. This is not a game about defeating the end boss, its a game about unlocking all the ships. Once you realize this, the game is still difficult, but very fun. This game was made for the iPad. Excellent port.
We’ve always enjoyed strategy games, virtual or physical, but we’ve never found a strategy game that makes us feel so much more free, if you know what we mean. Its, by far, our favorite strategy game we’ve ever found (besides Brass Tactics). This game is quite addictive. We got distracted. Its what we play now. Nice that you get the option to turn on and off the Advanced Edition, nice difficulty selection (I prefer easy atm), and the universe is randomly generated. So many events that can occur on your journey. We love the variety of weapons. This game is quite a challenge, the kind we like. Although the detail is pixelated, it was well put together to the point where the pixels look nicely fitted together. But, if youre not a kind of person who likes games that you have to keep trying in, then dont play this unless your ready to try to change that feeling. 5 stars.
This game is absolutely worth every penny. Excellently made and entertaining. We have whiled away hours and hours in FTL and still keep coming back for more. It’s very comforting to know that the developers will provide continued support for their excellent creation into the future. Thanks for a great game, guys. Now, if you’ll excuse us we’re going to try once again to unlock that secret spaceship….