Google is planning to deliver Android video games to Windows PCs subsequent 12 months. A Google Play Games app shall be out there in 2022, constructed by Google to permit video games from Google Play to run on Windows laptops, tablets, and PCs.

“Starting in 2022, players will be able to experience their favorite Google Play games on more devices: seamlessly switching between a phone, tablet, Chromebook, and soon, Windows PCs,” says Greg Hartrell, Google’s product director of video games on Android and Google Play, in an announcement to The Verge. “This Google built product brings the best of Google Play Games to more laptops and desktops, and we are thrilled to expand our platform for players to enjoy their favorite Android games even more.”

Google spokesperson Alex Garcia-Kummert tells The Verge that the corporate has constructed this app by itself, which suggests Google hasn’t partnered with Microsoft, BlueStacks, or others right here. The upcoming app may even permit gamers to renew video games on a desktop PC, after enjoying them on a telephone, pill, or Chromebook.

For now, Google is just teasing the app throughout The Game Awards tonight, with a promised launch window of someday subsequent 12 months. It’s not but clear what know-how Google is utilizing to emulate Android apps on Windows, however video games will run regionally as an alternative of streaming from the cloud.

“This will be a native Windows app distributed by Google, which will support Windows 10 and up,” explains Hartrell. “It will not involve game streaming.” Google’s app received’t depend on any particular integration with Windows 11, and the corporate may even distribute the app itself.

Google’s announcement comes months after Microsoft began testing Android apps on Windows 11 PCs. Microsoft has constructed an underlying Windows Subsystem for Android, which is able to operating Android apps from quite a lot of sources. The software program large has partnered with Amazon to let Windows customers natively set up video games and apps from the Amazon Appstore, however native Google Play help received’t be out there formally by way of Microsoft’s function.

Since Microsoft is barely formally partnered with Amazon for that function, it has meant far fewer Android video games and apps out there for Windows 11 customers to simply set up than there may in any other case be. The door is open for Google, BlueStacks, and others to fill that gap.

While Microsoft, and now Google, work on bringing Android apps and video games to Windows, BlueStacks has gone a step additional and is now bringing Android video games to internet browsers. BlueStacks X is a free approach to play Android video games in your browser, and BlueStacks has been targeted on Android gaming on Windows because it grew to become the predominant use case for its primary app in 2016.

Details on Google’s plans for Android apps on Windows first appeared in a doc from the Epic v. Apple trial earlier this 12 months. Dated October 2020, the 70-page doc described an bold effort to get Android video games on Macs and Windows PCs. The doc revealed Google would first deliver “emulated, native and streamed games” to Windows, and at the least a part of that effort is beginning in 2022.