Starting with Q2 of 2016, Gameloft is planning on releasing a new version of their popular racing game which is now a series that includes eight different games. This time around may be a little more "extreme" than previous versions of the game. This new racing game will feature rally cars, monster trucks, souped up jeeps, dune buggies, and even something that looks like a VW Microbus with monster truck tires. Things speed up in Q3 of 2016 with a city building game where players will manage a city in something that looks a whole lot like SimCity BuildIt. Likely more interesting to our audience is a title from Gameloft's Grand Theft Auto-like series that is set in New Orleans. It's going to be totally open world, and have some kind of "social" component.
Rounding out this year's Q4 releases is a new iteration on Gameloft's Call of Duty-ish first person shooter series that looks like it's set a tiny bit further in the future featuring soldiers in super suits, futuristic weapons, and lots of explosions. The tentative title hints that multiplayer will be a large component, and considering the current game in this series also leaned heavily on multiplayer, that's not much of a surprise.
There wasn't any specific mention with regards to whether or not these games would be free to play, but during the presentation Gameloft outlined that the strategy for upcoming years include "staying up to date on the latest monetization techniques." They specifically listed cards, gacha mechanics, leveling things up, and event systems with ambitious user acquisition strategies. Realistically, if you're expecting big studios like this to be releasing premium games in 2016 and 2017, you really haven't been paying attention to the iOS market.
We're going to keep our eyes out for more details on these games, which we can hopefully start mentioning by name... But, since we don't really like getting emails from lawyers, it seems better to err on the side of caution here.