Windows PC users may now play Android games thanks to Google

If you have a Windows PC, you can run Android games natively. Google Play Games on PC lets you save your game progress across all of your devices, without any OS or form-factor restrictions. 

This isn’t a new idea, but it’s still a big step. For a long time, the only way to play Android games on a PC was to run an emulation software like BlueStacks or Android x86. What made this difficult was the x86-ARM wall that separated the two platforms. Microsoft finally announced Android apps for Windows 11 last year. It was only available on the Amazon App Store, which has fewer apps (and games) than the Google Play Store. Unlike the Amazon App Store, Google is now trying to fill the game library void.

Playing Android games on PCs (both Windows 10 and 11) is now possible thanks to the official Google Play Games desktop and laptop app. The app, as of now, is in beta testing with a waitlist. As a result, only people in Taipei, China, Hong Kong, and South Korea can play games like Mobile Legends, State of Survival, and Three Kingdoms Tactics on their phones and tablets now. Whether Google plans to do the same for macOS isn’t clear, but it’s not likely that Apple will ever let it.

More than 25 games will be available to users who are selected to test the beta version of the app. A mouse and keyboard will be required to play games on a PC, giving players an unfair advantage over those using a phone’s cramped on-screen inputs. 

At this point, Google hasn’t provided any details on how it prevents games from being played on a mobile device and a PC using the same emulator software. However, it’s important that game progress is shared between all devices with the same Google Play Games account.

To my knowledge, the app has not been developed using any emulation layer. It isn’t like Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming, Google’s Stadia, or Nvidia’s GeForce Now, which are all cloud-based games that you can play on your computer. All games will run on their own, which means that the PC hardware must be good enough to handle more and more graphics-heavy mobile games. 

For Google Play Games on PC, you need at least Windows 10 (v2004), an SSD drive with at least 20GB of space, a gaming-class GPU, an octa-core CPU, 8GB of RAM and a Windows Administrator account. because of this hardware virtualization must be turned on as well. 

For some reason, Google has already ruled out AMD devices with less graphics memory. Lenovo ThinkPads (specifically) are also not allowed.

Aside from the region lock, there are a few other hurdles that gamers must jump through in order to play Android games on their Windows PCs natively. The first step is to create an account on the Google Play Games official page and add your name to the waiting list. An email with instructions for downloading the PC Check will be sent once they have received a confirmation. This is a bit like Microsoft’s own buggy app for checking Windows 11 compatibility. As long as a computer has been found to be capable of running Android games on Windows, users can proceed with the installation of Google Play Games.