Smartphone owners have enjoyed low-cost Android gaming for more than a decade, thanks to the Google Play Store. The quality of its myriad titles wildly varies, but the shop contains many gems that are worth a download. Currently in beta, Google Play Games brings a big chunk of Android’s mobile gaming library to Windows PCs. The online video game marketplace doesn’t compete with Steam in terms of catalog, and it needs more work to make its many titles playable on the new platform. Still, mobile gaming fans who've longed to trade a cramped phone screen for an expansive monitor can now do so.

What Can You Play With Google Play Games?

Google Play Games has a growing library of more than 3,000 titles. Granted, that's a fraction of what’s available on Android phones, but it's still a sizable list. You’ll find many familiar Android games across all genres, such as Alto’s Odyssey, Clash of Clans, Fallout Shelter, Jetpack Joyride, and Kingdom Rush. Genshin Impact is here, with a massive 60GB download. It’s certainly more impressive than the handful of games you receive with a Netflix or YouTube Premium subscription. However, I wish the catalog had better curation.

(Credit: Google)

This isn’t Apple Arcade, which showcases the best of the best titles. Google Play Games has great games, but also exploitative, free-to-play junk that makes mobile gaming feel like a sea of shovelware. In fact, every title I saw was a free game that included optional in-app purchases. Steam has plenty of garbage too, but it has recommendations and filtering tools that help you find games without wading through the trash. Google Play Games currently lacks those personalization features despite the Google Play Store having them. Itch.io has games you’ve never heard of, but that’s because they’re experimental indie games, not cheap cash-ins.

(Credit: Google)

Navigating Google Play Games

Google Play Games has a clean, minimal interface. After downloading the desktop app and logging in with your Google account, you’ll see a home screen highlighting top games in different categories. You can also search for specific games, either by name or by browsing through Arcade, Casino, Role Playing, Strategy, or other genres.

Select a game and you’re taken to a new page to learn more. These listings feature videos and screenshots, an age rating, developer info, similar games, and descriptive tags. Google Play Games has user reviews and ratings as well as community forums, so it already feels more useful than the Epic Games Store (although it also lacks a dedicated screenshot button). After a game is installed, you launch it from the library tab. If you're already playing a game on your phone, you can even sync progress and earn Google Play Points to redeem for cash rewards.

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The Gameplay Experience

Each store listing details how optimized each game is for PC. Similar to Steam Deck verification, Google Play Games informs you if a release was updated for PC or if it’s still essentially a mobile game that may present some compatibility issues. This inconsistency is the store's biggest hurdle.

For example, Angry Birds 2 is compatible with touch screens and mouse controls. The shoot ‘em up 1945 Air Force supports keyboard inputs, but not a controller. The app displayed the game in a vertical aspect ratio, which is ideal for that kind of shooter on a phone. That said, it looks barren on a wide-screen PC monitor without at least some side borders. Asphalt 9 recognized my Xbox controller and let me use it to navigate menus, but I had issues controlling my car during in-game races. Badland worked perfectly fine with a controller.

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Even adjusting settings varies from game to game. There’s a universal menu that lets you view control schemes and resolutions, but not every game lets you change those preferences. You also won't find features like video capture, streaming integration, or a frame rate counter. As a result, Google Play Games feels like an emulator that’s still working out the kinks. It's still in beta, after all.

Most of the Google Play Games titles I tested looked good and ran well, but I experienced graphical glitches with Asphalt 9 (one of the most visually impressive and therefore technically demanding games on the service).

Currently, Google Play Games has weirdly high system requirements for playing phone games on your computer. Your PC needs at least Windows 10 OS, an SSD, 8GB of RAM, hardware virtualization, 4 CPU physical cores, and at least an Intel UHD Graphics 630 GPU. I suspect the service is trying to use brute force to pass Android emulation issues rather than truly porting the individual titles.

OK Google Gaming

Great video games should be available on all platforms. After all, sometimes you want to play on your phone and other times you want to play on your computer. You don’t have to choose with Google Play Games. The current mobile gaming marketplace still has fundamental quality issues unlikely to be resolved soon, but we at least hope Google Play Games works towards improving compatibility across the board as it expands its library and heads towards a full rollout. 

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