Building excellent games with better graphics and performance

Posted by Matthew McCullough – VP of Product Management, Android

We’re stepping up our multiplatform gaming offering with exciting news dropping at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC). We’re bringing users more games, more ways to play your games across devices, and improved gameplay. You can read all about the updates for users from The Keyword. At GDC, we’ll be diving into all of the latest games coming to Play, plus new developer tools that’ll help improve gameplay across the Android ecosystem.

Today, we’re sharing a closer look at what’s new from Android. We’re making Vulkan the official graphics API on Android, enabling you to build immersive visuals, and we’re enhancing the Android Dynamic Performance Framework (ADPF) to help you deliver longer, more stable gameplays. Check out the video or keep reading below.

More immersive visuals built on Vulkan, now the official graphics API

These days, games require more processing power for realistic graphics and cutting-edge visuals. Vulkan is an API used for low level graphics that helps developers maximize the performance of modern GPUs, and today we’re making it the official graphics API for Android. This unlocks advanced features like ray tracing and multithreading for realistic and immersive gaming visuals. For example, Diablo Immortal used Vulkan to implement ray tracing, bringing the world of Sanctuary to life with spectacular special effects, from fiery explosions to icy blasts.

Diablo Immortal running on Vulkan

For casual games like Pokémon TCG Pocket, which draws players into the vibrant world of each Pokémon, Vulkan helps optimize graphics across a broad range of devices to ensure a smooth and engaging experience for every player.

Pokémon TCG Pocket running on Vulkan

We’re excited to announce that Android is transitioning to a modern, unified rendering stack with Vulkan at its core. Starting with our next Android release, more devices will use Vulkan to process all graphics commands. If your game is running on OpenGL, it will use ANGLE as a system driver that translates OpenGL to Vulkan. We recommend testing your game on ANGLE today to ensure it’s ready for the Vulkan transition.

We’re also partnering with major game engines to make Vulkan integration easier. With Unity 6, you can configure Vulkan per device while older versions can access this setting through plugins. Over 45% of sessions from new games on Unity^* use Vulkan, and we expect this number to grow rapidly.

To simplify workflows further, we’re teaming up with the Samsung Austin Research Center to create an integrated GPU profiler toolchain for Vulkan and AI/ML optimization. Coming later this year, this tool will enable developers to make graphics, memory and compute workloads more efficient.

Longer and smoother gameplay sessions with ADPF

Android Dynamic Performance Framework (ADPF) enables developers to adjust between the device and game’s performance in real-time based on the thermal state of the device, and it’s getting a big update today to provide longer and smoother gameplay sessions. ADPF is designed to work across a wide range of devices including models like the Pixel 9 family and the Samsung S25 Series. We’re excited to see MMORPGs like Lineage W integrating ADPF to optimize performance on their core target devices.

Lineage W running on ADPF

Here’s how we’re enhancing ADPF with better performance and simplified integration:

• Stronger performance: Our collaboration with MediaTek, a leading chip supplier for Android devices, has brought enhanced stability to ADPF. Devices powered by MediaTek’s MAGT system-on-chip solution can now fully utilize ADPF’s performance optimization capabilities.
• Easier integration: Major game engines now offer built-in ADPF support with simple interfaces and default configurations. For advanced controls, developers can customize the ADPF behavior in real time.

Performance optimization with more features in Play Console

Once you’ve launched your game, Play Console offers the tools to monitor and improve your game’s performance. We’re newly including Low Memory Killers (LMK) in Android vitals, giving you insight into memory constraints that can cause your game to crash. Android vitals is your one-stop destination for monitoring metrics that impact your visibility on the Play Store like slow sessions. You can find this information next to reach and devices which provides updates on your game’s user distribution and notifies developers for device-specific issues.

Check your Android vitals regularly to ensure high technical quality

Bringing PC games to mobile, and pushing the boundaries of gaming

We’re launching a pilot program to simplify the process of bringing PC games to mobile. It provides support starting from Android game development all the way through publishing your game on Play. Starting this month, games like DREDGE and TABS Mobile are growing their mobile audience using this program. Many more are following in their footsteps this year, including Disco Elysium. You can express your interest to join the PC to mobile program.

New PC games are coming to mobile

You can learn more about Android game development from our developer site. We can’t wait to see your title join the ranks of these amazing games built for Android. And if you’ll be at GDC next week, we’d love to say hello – stop by at the Moscone Center West Hall!

* Source: Google internal data measuring games on Android 14 or later launched between August 2024 – February 2025.