My new weekly column focuses on the state of Wear OS, from new developments and updates to the latest apps and features we want to highlight.
Everyone loves a good "Doom on a calculator" headline, so it's no surprise that tech blogs lit up when a Redditor posted footage of playing classic video games on their Galaxy Watch 5 using sideloading. GTA and God of War running on a 1-inch screen is undeniably cool. Only problem is, very few people have the patience and know-how to pull this off.
That's why I wanted to post a simple PSA for regular Android smartwatch owners: There are actual Wear OS games you can play on your Galaxy or Pixel Watch that don't require hacking or destroying your battery life.
In the Wear OS Play Store category, you should find a curated list of free and paid Android watch games that are optimized to use limited storage and RAM.
The list of native Wear OS games available isn't nearly as long as I'd like, and they all have to reckon with limited screen space. But I did find the kind of games you'd want to play on your wrist: simple, classic games that you can enjoy for a few minutes in case you don't have your phone on you.
There are basically two main types of Wear OS games: single-tap games and swipe games. The appropriately named Single Tap Games has a variety of simple time-waster minigames, while there's a spin on the classic Dino Run browser game called Cactus Run: Classic where you have to react quickly to and leap over objects rushing you from the right.
I'm personally a fan of this infinite, timing-based space adventure called Jump Drive: Get Away where you have to tap at the right moment to zoom through obstacle gates while collecting gems to advance. I don't know how it looks on older Android watches, but the Pixel Watch 3 has it running surprisingly smoothly thanks to the 2GB of RAM and 60Hz refresh rate.
As for "swipe" games, my immediate favorite was the simply-named "2048 for smart watch" app. Because the gameplay is so suited to simple, deliberate swipes, it doesn't matter that the screen is so small. And unlike other games that start to get repetitive quickly, this one stays interesting for longer because there's a bit of strategy involved.
Several other popular Wear OS game apps are all about mental training or relaxation, like this Speed Math game where you test your skills by tapping the correct answer, or swipe to rotate shapes and form beautiful objects in this Shapes Logic game.
Plus, of course, now that Google has made a kids' version of Wear OS, you'll find a dozen or so kid-centric games that prioritize creativity and learning.
Many of the Wear OS games I've tried are on the low-quality side, and certainly you'll hardly find anything on the level you'd see from most Play Store games optimized for higher-end Snapdragon hardware.
But considering we've seen sideloaded Android games like Temple Run on Wear OS, and there's a new Snapdragon Wear chip coming, I wonder if we could one day hope for better.
Google curated kids' games for Galaxy Watch for Kids; why can't it leverage its Play Store partnerships for a few non-kiddie games optimized for a tiny screen? Particularly Play Pass games that could fit on a small screen without ruining the experience?
I've already written about how I want to see the return of virtual pets like Tamagotchi on Wear OS; they could be "fed" by your steps or activity minutes to encourage physical fitness, or look perky or exhausted based on your sleep data. There is a cute Wearable Monsters app for raising an on-wrist pet, but it's more of a traditional pet game with no health data involved.
There's also the potential for Gemini on Wear OS to enable AI-generated, text-based experiences on watches. Imagine an interactive fitness game that has you run to a destination while Gemini describes a virtual adventure at every checkpoint, or just a simple choose-your-own-adventure prompt where you pick between several options and have the LLM read out where the story goes next.
But that's all hypothetical. For now, I'd recommend Android Watch fans take a few minutes to download some games! They're not gonna replace your Android game library or Steam Deck, but they're a chill way to kill time.
