Apple / games / TEMPLE RUN 2: ENDLESS ESCAPE
REVIEW
Temple Run 2 is somehow still running, thirteen years in.
Imangi keeps shipping new maps to the same swipe-jump-slide loop from 2013, and on iPhone there is no Temple Run 3 to graduate to.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 11, 2026 · 4 MIN READ
Temple Run 2: Endless Escape
IMANGI STUDIOS, LLC
OUR SCORE
7.1
APPLE
★ 4.5
PRICE
Free
The endless runner genre has a problem: it ended. Subway Surfers went global and stayed there, Crossy Road pivoted to franchise mode, and most of the 2013 wave is gone from the store entirely. Temple Run 2 should have been on that list. Instead it just shipped its 132nd version, a desert map called Blazing Sands, and a Mother’s Day pet that drops extra coins.
Imangi’s trick has always been refusing to ship a real sequel on iPhone. Temple Run 3 launched on Android last October. iPhone players are still on the sequel, and Imangi seems fine with that — there’s been no port announcement, no roadmap, no acknowledgement of the split. So what iOS has is a thirteen-year-old game with a content schedule still attached to it.
The strange thing is how well that holds up. The swipe-to-turn timing is the same calibration Imangi nailed in 2013, the frame pacing is locked, and the loop still does what the genre was built to do — fit a real session into the four minutes between subway stops. The ads are louder than they used to be and the new maps want dollars, but the run itself is intact.
Temple Run 3 shipped on Android last October. iPhone players are still on the sequel, and Imangi seems fine with that.
FEATURES
The core loop is the one Imangi shipped in January 2013 and has barely touched since: swipe to turn at forks, swipe up to jump gaps, swipe down to slide under beams, tilt the phone to drift coin lines. Death is one missed swipe and the demon monkey Shushank's hands on your shoulders. Coins fund the meta-game; green gems revive you mid-run.
Around that loop the game has accreted thirteen years of content. Six unlockable runners are free if you grind — Guy Dangerous, Scarlett Fox, Barry Bones, Karma Lee, Montana Smith, Cleopatra — and a long bench of paid skins (Usain Bolt, Bruce Lee, holiday tie-ins) sit at $0.99 each. Maps rotate between Sky Summit, Lost Jungle, Frozen Shadows, Pirate Cove, Spirit Peaks, Enchanted Palace, Blazing Sands. Version 1.132.0, released this month, added Blazing Sands and a Mother's Day pet.
Power-ups are unchanged from the original sequel: coin magnet, score multiplier, shield, head start. There's a daily challenge, a global challenge, a weekly tournament, and a pet system that drops bonuses on the track. Game Center leaderboards still work. The game runs offline.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The thing the game gets right is the swipe-to-turn window. Even on a 2026 iPhone the timing is the same generous-but-not-forgiving feel that made the franchise work in the first place — late enough that you can recover from a surprise fork, early enough that you can't cheese it. Frame pacing is locked, the camera doesn't lurch, and the run never stalls to load the next chunk. Thirteen years of optimisation passes show.
Pricing is also honest, in the limited way mobile games still can be. The $0.99 entry tier is real — Usain Bolt and Bruce Lee are a buck each, not a $9.99 starter bundle in disguise — and the game is genuinely playable without spending. Offline support means a flight or a subway commute works the same as the couch.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
The monetisation has drifted in a direction long-time players have noticed and reviewers complain about: the older maps and characters were unlockable through coins, the newer ones increasingly want dollars. Blazing Sands content trickles into the coin economy slowly enough that most players will either wait months or pay. Coin doublers and gem chests at $4.99 to $19.99 do the rest of the lifting.
The iPad version has not been a priority. Swipe detection on the larger screen reads as less reliable than on iPhone, and the HUD scales to fit rather than redesigns. Audio is the other live complaint — interstitial ads ignore the iPhone silent switch, which is the kind of thing that should have been a one-line fix five updates ago. And the elephant: Temple Run 3 launched on Android in October. There is no iOS version, no announced date, no public statement explaining the split.
CONCLUSION
Install it if you want the endless runner that built the genre and you want to play it on iPhone, where it still works better than anywhere else. Skip it if you've been away for years and were hoping the sequel finally arrived on iOS — that's Android-only for now. The interesting question is what Imangi does with the iOS line if Temple Run 3 stays exclusive. Until then, this is the version iPhone players have, and it's still the best run on the App Store.