Nick Fernandez / Android Authority
TL;DR
- GameNative 0.8.0 pre-release introduces a major UI overhaul with full controller navigation.
- The update also adds support for Amazon Games, alongside improvements to Steam, GOG, and Epic integrations.
- The experimental build is now available as an APK on the project’s GitHub page.
Running PC games on Android is still a bit of a frontier, but the tools that make it possible are improving quickly. One of those tools, GameNative, just picked up a sizeable new update. The developers have released GameNative 0.8.0 as a pre-release build, bringing a major UI overhaul along with support for another PC game storefront.
The update was announced by one of the developers on Reddit alongside a new build posted on the project’s GitHub page. A significant addition is Amazon Games support, which expands the number of PC libraries you can access through the launcher.
If you haven’t come across it before, GameNative is an open-source Android app that lets you run and manage PC games locally on your device. It ties into storefronts like Steam and GOG, letting you browse, download, and launch games directly from your phone or Android gaming handheld. It also recently added support for Epic Games titles.
This latest release focuses heavily on usability. The developers say the app now has a massively overhauled interface, and you can navigate the app with a controller rather than jabbing at the screen. That’s a pretty big deal if you’re using one of the many Android handhelds out there, where touch input isn’t always the most natural way to get around a launcher.
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There are a few other notable changes, such as an offline mode for Steam games, which should stop certain titles from trying to connect to servers every time you launch them. Touch controls have also been reworked with dynamic on-screen joysticks, and there’s new portrait controller support for devices like the 8BitDo FlipPad. On top of that, the release includes improvements to GOG and Epic integrations, as well as a long list of bug fixes.
As the name suggests, 0.8.0 is still a pre-release build, so it’s not quite ready to be called stable just yet. If you’re interested in trying it anyway, the APK is already available through the project’s GitHub release page.
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