BackStab

Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play got BackStab first, as an exclusive, before Gameloft released it more widely on the Android Market in July 2011 for $6.99. The game was often described as Gameloft’s answer to Assassin’s Creed, set on an 18th-century Caribbean island. BackStab is no longer sold on Google Play, and its Android package and data folder carry the name com.gameloft.android.ANMP.GloftSDHM.

What Is BackStab

You play Henry Blake, a former Royal Navy officer seeking justice and revenge in the Caribbean. The open island covers roughly 10 square kilometers of jungle, beaches, temples and a volcano, and three cities offer side quests and secrets: a Spanish city, an English city and a free city founded by escaped slaves. You can travel on foot, by horse, by carriage or by ship, which made the world feel large on phones of that period.

Climbing, Sneaking And Combos In BackStab

Movement borrows from the climbing games of its day. Henry scales walls and cliffs, jumps between ledges and sneaks up on guards, and full 3D environments with voice effects gave the island more life than most phone games of 2011. When fights break out, a combo-based combat system strings attacks together. The Xperia Play’s physical buttons suited that style well, which helps explain why the game launched there first, while touch-only phones used virtual buttons.

BackStab Started On One Phone Before Reaching Others

The Xperia Play exclusive came from a period when Sony Ericsson was promoting its slide-out gamepad phone with games built for it. When Gameloft opened BackStab up, Android Central’s launch report listed 26 compatible devices, a reminder that early HD Android games were tested phone by phone instead of targeting any device. On Android it launched through both the Android Market and the Gameloft Store, and an iOS version also came out in 2011.

What Became Of BackStab On Android?

BackStab is no longer sold on Google Play, and Gameloft has not announced a remaster or re-release. The last Android build, version 1.2.8d, ships its game engine as a 32-bit ARMv7 library, so phones that only run 64-bit apps cannot load it, and many recent handsets fall into that group. A fan-made PS Vita loader targets that same build and requires users to supply files from a copy they own, which shows the game still has followers years later.

Who Will Still Enjoy BackStab

Players who liked the early Assassin’s Creed games and remember Gameloft’s ambitious 2011 period will see the appeal of Henry Blake’s revenge story, though the controls and visuals show their age next to modern open-world games. Without a current Google Play listing, there is no official way to buy BackStab today, and we do not recommend modded or mirrored APKs. Those who still have it installed on an older phone that runs 32-bit apps can keep playing, provided the device holds out and the data files stay intact.

Its premise also made it stand out among Gameloft’s 2011 lineup. Instead of modern soldiers or street racers, it offered pirates, colonial towns and sailing, a setting few phone games of the time attempted at this scale. Gameloft knew the climbing-and-stealth formula well by then, having made the official Assassin’s Creed mobile game that sat in its Android HD lineup back in 2010, and BackStab carried those lessons into an original world of its own.