9 great Android games and gaming subscriptions from 2022

There are plenty of great games on Android to play, whether you’re using a phone, tablet, or a dedicated Android handheld. Some of them even work on your Google TV equipped television with a connected Bluetooth controller. And in 2022, it became much easier to play Xbox and PC games over the cloud if you don’t mind paying a subscription to do so.

For Android veterans and newcomers alike, jumping into the Google Play Store to find a new game can be overwhelming. (It’s not your fault, the curation of the store is hard to navigate.) Rather than leave you alone to discover what’s good from the immense selection, we’ve pulled out a few handfuls of recommendations. All of these games must support touch controls, and some may also be compatible with Bluetooth controllers or click-on controller accessories such as the Razer Kishi V2 and the Backbone One.

Many of these games are free (with in-app purchases), although some require payment. Either way, they should all offer enough replay value to keep you entertained through the holiday season and beyond.

Marvel Snap is the mobile game of the year, at least in terms of the amount of buzz it generated. It is a collectible card game where each card contains a Marvel character complete with unique skills and attributes. You take your deck against online opponents in battles that last six minutes or less. If this sounds even remotely like something you would enjoy, you should give it a try. It’s free with in-app purchases, and my colleague Ash Parrish has written a handy starter guide.

Blizzard Diablo Immortal is the first Diablo mobile game, and fans of and newcomers to the legendary isometric dungeon crawling series should give this game a try. It’s a very faithful adaptation made for phones and tablets that looks great, plays well (if your hardware is powerful enough), and offers a lot of depth without costing you any money up front. For the Diablo uninitiated, you choose a character class with fixed abilities, and they will grow as you defeat hordes of undead enemies and bosses. One of the best parts of playing one Diablo game join friends which is also supported by this game.

Diablo Immortal works with touch controls and provides controller support.

In mid-2022, Respawn and Electronic Arts released a free mobile version of Apex Legendsthe hit battle royale first-person shooter. Apex Legends mobile works with touch controls and offers limited controller support (it works with wireless Xbox, PS4 and PS5 controllers, as well as the Razer Kishi). The mobile approach Apex Legends isn’t exactly a one-to-one copy of the console and PC versions of the game. You can play in a first or third person perspective, and character unlocks are handed out in a different way. Your progress from the other version of the game will not carry over to this one either. Otherwise it’s a great way to get the Apex Legends experience with you on the road.

The games I’ve recommended so far require a lot of active input, but if you want a free game that’s more relaxed (and rewards just walking around), try Picmin Bloom. It’s one of Nintendo’s newest mobile games, borrowing some of the company’s home console’s charming characters and game mechanics pikmin spell. By walking around (and being tracked by GPS), you pluck Pikmin from the ground in the game and plant seedlings. In between walks, you can groom them in a Tamagotchi-like manner. There is no real end goal other than trying to walk as much as possible to get new species pikmin along your journey.

You can’t go wrong Minecraft. If you haven’t played it before, it’s a first-person survival-meets-building game where everything is made of blocks – a now-iconic look. The game is available on virtually every modern console and platform, but you get the full experience on mobile, complete with multiplayer support. Unfortunately, if you own the game on desktop, you’ll have to buy it again to play on mobile (unless you scroll down to the next recommendation).

Minecraft is the rare kind of game that can go as deep as you want. Some people just like to scavenge during the day and fend off zombies at night, dig underground tunnels (um, mines, hence the name), create replicas of cultural touchstones, or play it as an educational tool for school .

Genshin effect is a shoo-in for this list, even though it’s not technically new. In case you haven’t heard of the game or just haven’t played it yet, it’s an open-world action-adventure title that takes the look and some gameplay of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In short, it’s a lot of fun, even if not everything about it is completely original. The developer, miHoYo, is constantly adding more content to keep the game fresh, and great graphics make it a continuous joy to watch in motion.

This game is free to play, but keep in mind that it takes a fairly powerful phone to run it at respectable frame rates. Another thing to note is that controller support is currently non-existent, so you just need to use the touchscreen to play it.

Dark souls is not on mobile, but other games have filled its absence. Dead cells scratches that itch with fun yet difficult gameplay that is meant to be played again. It’s a side-scrolling action game with procedurally generated enemy placements (meaning it’s different every time you play), and there are plenty of weapons, skills and stages to unlock with cells you collect from slain enemies.

Assuming you haven’t died at the end of each stage, you have a chance to exchange your cells for rewards. But when you die (you’ll probably die a few times – that’s part of the fun), you have to retrieve your cells at the point where you dropped them. Getting them back becomes a fun game in itself.

Okay, this isn’t technically a “game” recommendation, but rather a full game ecosystem available on Android. If you subscribe to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate ($1.99 per month for the first three months if you’re a new subscriber, then $14.99 per month), you can visit this site on your android phone to essentially turn it into a portable Xbox. It says “Cloud Gaming Beta” at the top of the screen and gives you access to all the latest games from Microsoft Xbox Game Studios and many others.

This cloud-based service allows you to play many Game Pass games over Wi-Fi or LTE/5G (you’ll have the best experience over Wi-Fi, but keep in mind that this service is a lot of the data). Some games allow touch control, or you can connect a controller, such as the Xbox Wireless Controller, the Razer Kishi, or the Backbone One.

Note: there is no app to download, but with the mobile browser Google Chrome you can give it a permanent place on your home screen. Click the three vertical dots to the right of the URL address bar, then tap Add to home screen.

If you have a PC with a lot of games on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Ubisoft Connect, you might as well try Nvidia GeForce Now. It allows you to play many of the PC games you own from these three services on your Android device without your PC having to be turned on. Here’s one full list of supported games. Just plug in a controller and you’re good to go.

The advantage of this service, compared to Xbox Cloud Gaming, is that GeForce Now doesn’t just hand out some games for a fee. In most cases you have to own them in order to play them. There are a few free to play games including Fortnitethat are available for free. GeForce Now has a free tier which lets you play the games you own and the free-to-play titles at 720p for one-hour sessions (you just get disconnected, but you can reconnect), or upgrade to a $9.99 per month tier that will give you access to a 1080p virtual machine capable of ray-tracing graphics with six-hour play sessions.

Like Xbox Cloud Gaming, this service uses a lot of bandwidth, so it hurts your device’s battery life and your internet data limit if you have one.