BlueStacks X is a free service for playing Android games in the cloud, promoted by the Bluestacks emulator in partnership with the company Now.gg. The site brings a collection of 25 games, such as Raid: Shadow Legends, Lords Mobile, The Walking Dead No Man’s Land, and Hero Wars, which can be played directly in your PC and Mac browser with no installation required. To start playing, just log on to the page (x.bluestacks.com) and click on “Play in the Cloud”. The service is still in the beta testing phase and players need to log in with their Google account to access the games.
What is it?
BlueStacks X works similarly to Xbox Cloud Gaming, where games run by streaming. In practice, this means that the game runs on a central server, far away from the user’s PC, and the player just receives the images through the Internet, as if watching a YouTube video, but interactive. Although the game runs at great distances, the current technology allows the user to interact with the game with little delay, provided he has a good Internet connection.
Available games
The service announces that there are more than 200 free games available in the cloud, but this number seems to consider also games that need to be downloaded and installed. For actual play in the cloud, 25 titles can be found. Check out the full list.
- Disney Sorcerer’s Arena
- Lords Mobile
- RAID: Shadow Legends
- Idle Heroes
- The Walking Dead No Man’s Land
- Shelter War: Survival Games
- Merge World Above: Dragon Game
- Shop Titans: Design & Trade
- Hero Wars
- Rise of Kingdoms: Lost Crusade
- Unbelievable Dungeon
- Infinity Kingdom
- POP! Slots – Vegas Casino Slot Machine Games
- Castle Clash: Battle of Guilds
- Crush Them All
- Dynasty Scrolls
- Dawn of Zombies: Survival
- King of Avalon: Dominion
- Dragon Storm Fantasy
- War Robots PvP Multiplayer
- Hustle Castle: RPG Games
- Ebony: Return of the King
- Matchington Mansion
- Magnum Quest
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On the Tides of War
When selecting a game that is not available in the cloud, BlueStacks X will offer to download an “engine”, which is a specific version of the BlueStacks emulator to run the game, such as BlueStacks 5. In this case, the game will run in an emulator on the user’s PC and will require more processing power than playing in the cloud.
How to use
The user can play the games in a browser or through the BlueStacks X application on their PC or Mac. On the left side of the screen will be an icon called “Games in the Cloud”. When you hover your mouse over a title in the list, there will be a “Play in the Cloud” option. Just click on it to start playing. You will then need to sign in with a Google account. Occasionally games can be out of date, so you will need to update before you start.
Once in the game, the entire screen will be occupied, but the user can return to a limited window by pressing “Esc”. The option to return to full screen is in the upper right corner. It is worth remembering that each game has an initial configuration that involves a combination of mouse and keyboard designed for the gameplay of that specific title. The user can edit it and even connect a joystick if preferred.
Compatible devices
The BlueStacks X service is compatible with most web browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. Users can play games on virtually any device that has a compatible browser, be it a PC, smart TV, or even a smartphone. At first, it may not seem very useful to emulate Android on a cell phone that already runs the system, but by playing in the cloud the user is not limited to the hardware configuration of the device and does not need to take up space with installation.
According to journalist Tom Warren of The Verge website, the games also run on the Microsoft Edge browser installed on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. When performing a test on the PlayStation 4 (PS4) browser, however, the BlueStacks X website page did not work on the console.
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