Play PC games on your Android phone for free using Winlator 2.0 [Updated]
If you want to play Android games on your PC, there are third-party emulators like Bluestacks available to install, or you can make use of the Windows Subsystem for Android on Windows 11.
Surprisingly, though, you can do the reverse and play PC games on your Android device. For this you'll need Winlator. We’ve covered this Android app before, but it’s just been updated to improve compatibility and performance, and fix a number of problems.
SEE ALSO: Rectify11 is Windows 11 as it should be
Winlator is an Android app that lets you to run Windows (x86_64) games with Wine and Box86/Box64.
It works well, although as you might expect, some games fail to run and others require tweaks to the resolution. There are plenty of settings you can play around with to hopefully get problematic games running.
This is what's new in Winlator 2.0:
- Improved VirGL compatibility and performance (many games may not work)
- Improved Input Controls
- Improved Audio Plugin
- Added option to install custom Wine version (Experimental)
- Added Advanced tab on container settings
- Updated Mesa Turnip driver
- Updated Box64
- Updated OBB Image to version 2 (Optional)
- Added more DXWrappers
- Other bug fixes and improvements
- Fixed Wine install and improved Drives on container settings
[Update: The developer pulled version 2.0 shortly after release to make some improvements. The replacement build is now available and this article has been updated to reflect the changes.]
The app itself is easy to set up although you will need to own the games you want to play as, understandably, it doesn't come with any. It defaults to the Downloads folder, so just drop the games you want to try into there.
To use Winlator, follow these steps:
- Download and install the Winlator_2.0-UPDATED.apk from GitHub Releases
- Download the OBB file (main.2.com.winlator.obb) and put it into the directory /storage/emulated/0/Android/obb/com.winlator (create it if it doesn't exist)
- Launch the app and wait for the installation process to finish
Games that are known to run well include Fallout 3, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Mass Effect 2, and Oblivion. You can watch Xanadu Next, an action J-RPG from Nihon Falcom, running on Winlator in the video below.