Google Play Games | Revamped Level Up guidelines

Google Play Games revamped Level Up is a program to recognize and reward great gaming experiences with program rate card benefits to drive business growth for your game. Participation in this program is voluntary and developers that choose not to participate will not have a change in benefits they are entitled through other programs.

Our mission is to connect players with the best gaming experiences—ones that provide a consistent gamer experience, reach across all screens and deliver stable and smoother gameplay sessions.

Player expectations and developer needs are always evolving, and the program is designed to evolve with them. User experience guidelines and benefits may be updated over time. To help you maintain your program status, we will provide reasonable notice and detailed documentation before any program updates take effect, ensuring you have sufficient time to implement required changes.

This page describes the user experience guidelines. To know more about the Level Up program and benefits, visit the Google Play Games | Level Up program page.

User experience guidelines

To gain access to the Level Up program rate card benefits, your game needs to adhere to all the user experience guidelines outlined on this page. These guidelines may be updated from time to time as the program evolves.

The following sections outline the guidelines with three main themes:

Provide a consistent gamer experience

Our gaming platform introduces new mechanics and surfaces delivering an elevated, delightful, and consistent gaming experience for players. To deliver this, games should integrate the following user experience guidelines.

Platform authentication: Integrate the Google Play Games Services v2 SDK and ensure it initializes at startup. This integration powers achievements, game stats, and cross-device sync, for players who have opted into these platform features. For more information, see Play Games Services.

  • Using Play Games Platform authentication does not require using Google's identity system, or that you even have an in-game identity system. If you would like to use an identity system, you are free to use any identity provider (such as Sign in with Google, third party providers, or a custom backend) to manage proprietary in-game accounts. Games with in-game accounts can use the Play Games Recall API to sync accounts between devices to make sign-in easier.
  • Games that primarily target players aged under 13 are not required to initialize Play Games Services or deploy other features in this section (Achievements, GSAPI, Sidekick, Rewards, or Cloud Save) to meet Level Up guidelines.

Play Games Sidekick

Play Games Sidekick is an overlay that helps players stay in their game by delivering relevant content, functionality, and offers directly to them. Players expect Sidekick to be available on games on the Play Games platform.

Play Games Sidekick with available features.
Play Games Sidekick (click to enlarge).
  • Add the Sidekick to your game. This can be done through enabling the feature in the Play Developer Console if your game is published in the App Bundle format. Alternatively, you can compile the Sidekick SDK directly into your game if you are using the legacy APK format for publishing, or you are using an incompatible DRM solution.

Exemptions

While Sidekick benefits all players, it is not available for every audience. We have the following exemptions for this guideline:

  • Games that primarily target players aged under 13. Because Sidekick is disabled on children's accounts, games that are primarily designed for children under 13 are exempt.
  • If a game has encountered a blocking issue with Sidekick, and they have reported it and had it accepted by Google, then they may be granted an exemption for an appropriate period of time to find a work around or for the issue to be addressed.

Additional resources

For more information, see Sidekick.

Achievements

Achievements are a core gaming experience to recognize and reward players for their accomplishment in their games.

  • We require a minimum of 10 achievements spread across the lifetime of the game. Note that we recommend having 40+ achievements to provide robust, deep engagement with your players on the Google Play Games platform.

  • All achievements must have a unique name and description. These should make clear to players what they need to do to get the achievement.

  • To be eligible for Quests, a minimum of 4 achievements must be reasonably and reliably achievable within the first hour of gameplay by everyone who plays.

Good achievements with unique names, icons, and descriptions.
Good achievements with unique names, icons, and descriptions.

Exemptions

While achievements are available for all players, they may not make sense for every audience. We have the following exemption for this guideline:

  • Games that primarily target players aged under 13.

  • Games are exempt from providing achievements if they lack sufficient clear events, progression, or player accomplishment within them. Note that progression mechanisms like lifetime high scores, levels, area unlocking or discovery, enemy or challenger defeats, story stages, XP, completion percentages, or item collection can be used to create achievements.

Additional resources

For information on how to integrate achievements into your game and best practices, see Achievements.

Game Stats

Unlock deeper player engagement and boost your game's visibility across the Google Play Games platform with Game Stats. The Game Stats feature enables users to view their stats in their gamer profile and is used to power additional player engagement features across Play, such as Quests, Social Challenges and more in the future.

  • Submit at least 5 repetitive stats to power the Game Stats feature stored against the player's gamer profile. All stats need to represent regularly occurring actions by players in the game.
    • At least 1 stat needs to be usable for competitive player engagement features.
    • Stats should not require a purchase (For example, buy gems).
    • Stats should not require watching advertisements.
    • Stats should not be generic use of the game (For example, open the game; use settings).
    • Stats should be available to all users (For example, not a team-specific action).
  • If you have a primary progression mechanic, submit at least 1 additional player progression stat to power the Game Stats feature stored against the player's gamer profile.
    • Progression level needs to be a metric that represents the player's progress in the game.

Player data for Game Stats should be submitted using Game Stats API through either client or server implementation. Each player progression or repetitive stat needs to be configured in Play provided tools. Raw data schema needs to be declared and mapped to a user facing Game Stats, including display string, unique icon and any aggregation rules.

Most games should be able to provide appropriate signals. Examples are available to help you choose the correct data points that will enable the engagement mechanics.

Exemptions

The following exemptions apply to this guideline:

  • Games that primarily target players aged under 13 Game Stats is not enabled for players under 13 years of age.
  • Games are exempt from providing player states only if they lack clear progression mechanisms. If your game includes features such as lifetime high scores, levels, XP, completion percentages, or primary item collection, it does not qualify for this exemption as these can be used as a progression mechanism.

Additional resources

For more information, see Game Stats.

Rewards

Create Play Games Reward offers that Play can distribute to players for free as incentives and rewards including items already in the game or new items to drive increased engagement:

  • All items need to be available to every player at least once using Play.
  • All items must be meaningful or desirable for players to ensure they effectively drive engagement.
  • September 30, 2026: At least 2 single-use Play Games Reward offers, such as specific characters, skins, or weapons. These Play Game rewards will be awarded to players after the successful completion of a Quest.
  • March 1, 2027: At least 1 repeatable Play Games Reward offer, such as lives, temporary power-ups, daily reward items, in-game currency, or other consumables. These rewards will be awarded to players after successful completion of social challenges, with a maximum of 1 reward per week per player.

Exemptions

The following exemptions apply to this guideline:

  • Games that primarily target players aged under 13. Reward items are used for features like quests and Social Challenges, which are generally unavailable to players under 13. If your game primarily targets this age group, you are exempt from providing reward items.
  • Paid games. Players expect to get the full game experience for paid games after their initial purchase. This applies to any game with a single purchase, whether upfront at install time or through an one-time in-game purchase. We won't reward additional in-game items for paid games.

Additional resources

For more information, see Play Games Rewards.

Cloud save

Players play on multiple devices and install their games on the same device multiple times. As a result, they always need to start their game from their last progress state. To achieve this, you must implement a cloud save solution in your game.

  • A game must save the player's game state off-device in the cloud and retrieve it when they start the game.
  • A conflict resolution policy is required when a player has multiple in-game accounts or if there is a conflict between saved game data on their device and in the cloud. Usually, the player decides how to resolve these conflicts. Your conflict resolution policy should address the following scenarios:
    • Multiple accounts per user: Handle instances where a single player interacts with the application using different accounts.
    • State conflicts: Resolve discrepancies that arise between the local game state and the cloud-saved game state.

If you don't have an existing cloud save solution for your player progress, we recommend the Saved Games API as part of Play Games Services to provide this functionality. You are free to use any solution provider to meet this guideline.

We believe that every game should provide the ability for players to resume their progress across installs of the game.

Exemptions

The following exemptions apply to this guideline:

  • Cloud save is not required for games that don't provide in-game accounts and only provide guest accounts or do not provide any saved game state across gaming sessions.
  • Games where the save files exceed the size limits of the Saved Games API (3 MB) and implementing an automated third-party cloud solution would be cost-prohibitive are exempt from the cloud save guidelines. However, we recommend developers provide an alternative solution, such as allowing players to manually download and upload their files.

Additional resources

For more information, see Cloud save.

Expand your reach across all screens

Players want to play their favourite titles seamlessly across all their devices, and we are expanding Android's reach to new screens and spaces. To help developers reap the benefits of growing audiences, developers need to publish optimized versions of their games across form factors.

All games must follow these guidelines to deliver cross device form factor game experience to join the Level Up program:

Large screen optimization

Players expect to play their games on any device form factor that the Google Play Games Platform supports. This includes large screen Android devices like tablets or foldable phones. Your game needs to provide resizability functionality to ensure players get the best experience on these form factors.

Phone, foldable, tablet, and laptop form factors
Phone, foldable, tablet, and laptop form factors.
  • Handle system bars, display cutouts, and configuration changes—such as device rotation and window resizing—to prevent crashes and visual artifacts. Ensure all UI and gameplay elements remain visible and interactive, avoiding any obstructions that block player input, while correctly maintaining or restoring the game state.
  • Games in a landscape layout need to be full screen, without letterboxing or pillarboxing, at the aspect ratios for each reference device and also at the anchor aspect ratios of 4:3, 16:10 and 21:9.
  • Games in a portrait layout similarly need to support the complement aspect ratios. For example, for the anchor ratios the equivalent is 3:4, 10:16, 9:21.
  • Games are able to letterbox or pillar box themselves under the following conditions:
    • On a device with an aspect ratio that is not found on a flagship device or outside one of the anchor aspect ratios defined previously.
    • If the only game layout orientation (portrait or landscape) is different from the device's physical orientation.

Additional resources

Google Play Games on PC

Google Play Games on PC brings the best of Google Play by enabling players to experience an immersive and seamless cross-platform gameplay.

Exemptions

There are some games where distribution on PCs is challenging. The following exemptions apply to this guideline:

  • Form factor constraints would meaningfully degrade a quality experience. Titles that have critical gameplay technical requirements that are not available on the Google Play Games on PC form factor or where the Google Play Games on PC form factor will create a meaningfully degraded player experience, for example:
    • Augmented reality and location-based games rely fundamentally on the physical geographic displacement of the device.
    • Games utilizing local mobile hardware sensors (like breath input or sleep tracking) cannot be simulated and are critical to the core gameplay loop without workarounds.
    • Games with mechanics requiring the user to physically rotate their entire body in 360-degree real-world space to locate digital assets.
  • Platform-specific title-level IP-licensing limitation. Some developers have licensed their mobile game's title-level IP from a third party licensor. These agreements may restrict the developer's license, prohibiting the publishing of the title on PCs without first acquiring additional licensed rights. Such licensed-IP games for which the license grant excludes publishing such games to PCs may be eligible for the exemption.
  • (Paid Games Only) Mobile to PC price differential. Paid games distributed through the Play store prior to September 30, 2026 with a pre-existing PC-to-mobile price differential.

Additional resources

For more information on distributing to PC with Google Play, see Google Play Games on PC.

Precision input controls

Supporting multiple form factors means supporting the device's natural input, and in general allowing the user to play the way they feel best. This means that games must support controller and keyboard and mouse input for the best cross-screen gaming experiences.

Desktop computer with keyboard and mouse. Game is on screen, showing touchscreen inputs for direction control and mouse.
Keyboard, mouse, and touchscreen inputs.
  • The game must be fully playable with a controller, keyboard, and mouse (K&M) across all devices the game supports through the Play Games platform where these modes of input are available. Fully playable means the game can be played entirely from the start, including all gameplay mechanics and settings menus, without the need to fall back to touch input.

Exemptions

Not all mobile mechanics translate seamlessly to precision input controls. The following exemptions are driven by core gameplay mechanics and how we believe different modes of input fundamentally affect the player experience.

Criteria Controllers
Required 		K&M
Required
GPS / Location-Based Spatial Mapping: Augmented reality and location-based games rely fundamentally on the physical geographic displacement of the device. ❌
(not required) 		❌
(not required)
Ambient Sensors (Microphone/Sleep Tracking): Titles utilizing local mobile hardware sensors (like breath input or sleep tracking) cannot be simulated and are critical to the core gameplay loop without workarounds. ❌
(not required) 		❌
(not required)
Kinetic Camera / AR Panoramas: Mechanics requiring the user to physically rotate their entire body in 360-degree real-world space to locate digital assets. ❌
(not required) 		❌
(not required)
Gyroscopic / Accelerometer Spatial Aiming: Games that rely on a gyro or accelerometer being present on the device to play the game, and would otherwise require a significant reworking of the user experience in order to support precision inputs. ❌
(not required) 		❌
(not required)
Intense Rapid Swiping and Multi-Touch Rhythm: Rhythm games (Music genre) demand simultaneous, synchronous actuation of multiple screen nodes, which a single mouse cursor cannot execute mathematically. Controllers lack the physical layout to map dynamic 6-to-8 lane rhythm charts intuitively. ❌
(not required) 		❌
(not required)
Gestural Drawing / Freehand Vectors: Drawing specific geometric shapes or freehand paths is effectively impossible to replicate cleanly using the strict radial constraints of a controller thumbstick. ❌
(not required) 		✅
(required)
Drag-and-Drop / Absolute Point-and-Click: Executing rapid drag-and-drop mechanics with a relative radial thumbstick is kinetically unviable and vastly slower than absolute touch. ❌
(not required) 		✅
(required)

Additional resources

For more information about supporting precision inputs within your game, see Enable natural input on all form factors. When supporting controllers, make sure to add this flag to your manifest so that users can find your game when searching for controller-supported games in the store.

Form factor distribution

The Google Play Games platform is available across many different Android device form factors and players expect to play their games across them all. Your game must be distributed across the following Android form factors with exemplary quality:

Exemptions

The following exemptions apply to this guideline:

  • Form factor constraints would meaningfully degrade a quality experience. Titles that have critical gameplay technical requirements that are not available on the form factor or where the form factor will create a meaningfully degraded player experience, for example:
Gameplay mechanic Form Factors exempt from distribution
Augmented reality and location-based games rely fundamentally on the physical geographic displacement of the device Google Play Games on PC, Tablets, Googlebook, Android TV
Games utilizing local mobile hardware sensors (like breath input or sleep tracking) cannot be simulated and are critical to the core gameplay loop without workarounds. Google Play Games on PC, Tablets, Googlebook, Android TV, Android Auto
Games with mechanics requiring the user to physically rotate their entire body in 360-degree real-world space to locate digital assets. Google Play Games on PC, Googlebook, Android TV, Android Auto
  • Devices with technical specifications below the minimum Mobile hardware requirements. Games are exempt from distribution on devices with hardware (RAM, CPU, storage, or GPU) or Android versions that fall below your minimum mobile phone requirements.
  • Form factor availability. Games are exempt from distribution on devices that are not available in any of the regions where the game is offered—meaning there is no overlap in regional availability between the device and the game.

Title availability

Players enjoy the flexibility of choosing their preferred devices while maintaining seamless access to their entire library of gaming experiences.

For titles to be eligible for the program rate card benefits those titles must be released on Android supported form factors at the same time they become available on any other comparable, non-Android form factors from September 30th 2026 and moving forward. Currently required Android supported form factors include:

  • Mobile and Large Screen (Tablet, Googlebooks, PC)
  • Android XR (with titles running in a 2D window on the XR device)
  • Android TV
  • Android Auto

Titles that do not meet this title availability guideline will become eligible for the Level Up program rate card benefits following a 6-month waiting period, once all user experience guidelines are fully met.

Examples:

  • If a title is applying to be in the Level Up program and such title is currently available on other comparable non-Android form factors, such title must be launched on all comparable Android form factors for at least 6 months prior to enrollment into Level Up otherwise they will not be eligible for the program benefits until 6 months after the launch of their title on the Android form factor. The 6 month waiting period does not apply if the title was launched on the non-Android form factor prior to September 30th, 2026.
  • If a title currently enrolled in the program launches a comparable non-Android form factor and does not launch on the comparable Android form factor simultaneously, they will become ineligible for program benefits for 6 months.

Exemptions

The following exemptions apply to this guideline:

  • Differences between device platforms. Not every game is technically or conceptually suited for every hardware configuration; therefore, the title will be exempt if the developer can demonstrate that a specific Android form factor's constraints would meaningfully degrade the user experience against the comparable non-Android platform or if there is no viable technical solution for that hardware.
  • Launch grace period. To account for unforeseen technical hurdles, store review delays, or "soft launches," we will implement the following:
    • Standard grace period. Developers are granted a 15-day window to achieve "live" status on the Google Play Store.
    • Extended grace period. In exceptional circumstances where a developer can demonstrate that the delay was caused by a Google-side technical issue or an unusually long app review process, the grace period may be extended to 30 days upon manual review.
  • EEA. This guideline does not apply in the EEA. However, when distributing to the EEA, Android users should be able to access all new experiences and capabilities within the Android title provided by the developer. Developers are therefore required to fully optimize their titles for Android.

Deliver stable and smoother gameplay sessions

To ensure games run beautifully across all form factors, we are introducing quality benchmarks that guarantee both performance and stability for players. All games must follow these user experience guidelines to provide a high quality experience to join the Level Up program.

Stability

Android performance indicators

Players expect their games to provide a stable experience on their device that is free of crashes and Android Not Responding (ANRs). Games need to meet the following quality thresholds. To reduce volatility, these thresholds will be enforced based on the trailing 28 days of data considering only devices within the approved set for which your app has at least 1,500 sessions in the last 28 days.

Android vitals Test Devices 4GB+ RAM Android Devices
Crashes <1% average crash rate <2% average crash rate
ANRs <2% average ANR rate <3% average ANR rate

Exemptions

There are no exemptions from this guideline.

Additional resources

For more information diagnosing and fixing vital issues, see Android vitals.

Performance

A smooth and stable framerate is critical to delivering a high quality gaming experience on Android devices.

On reference devices, target and render at 60 fps by default with stability during gameplay after the loading screen:

  • Average FPS ≥ 55 FPS
  • Low 10% (P90) FPS ≥ 50 FPS
  • Low 1% (P99) FPS ≥ 30 FPS

Exemptions

Mobile games have to make many difficult decisions about what high quality means for their specific experience – such as whether to favor graphical fidelity or battery life during a play session. The following exemptions apply to this guideline:

  • Games that do not support 60 FPS on other platforms.
  • Games that use HWUI or Composer rather than rendering directly.
  • Games that only push new frames on player interaction, rather than on a continuously regular basis.
  • Games are not required to meet this on Tablet and Foldable devices due to their challenges in thermal design and computations to support high-resolution screens.

Additional resources

For additional details on calculating and measuring Level Up performance, see frame rate documentation. You can also explore the slow sessions documentation for optimization strategies regarding frame smoothness.

Memory

To deliver a premium experience, Android 17 is introducing optimized memory handling and stricter platform requirements later this year–accompanied by new, actionable memory telemetry in the Play Console. Because meeting these standard memory limits will be required for Level Up, we strongly encourage implementing these memory optimization strategies early to ensure app stability and a great user experience. More detailed compliance criteria to maintain your program status will be shared in the coming months.

Vulkan

Vulkan is Android's modern graphics API that offers significant improvements in performance and battery usage. It also offers new higher fidelity graphical techniques that will improve the gameplay experience on Android.

On devices that have updated graphics drivers, where DEQP≥20240301:

  • Vulkan must be set as the primary graphics API if you are using Unity version 2021 or newer, or Unreal Engine version 4.25 or newer. Minor OpenGL ES usage (For example, for Adverts, webviews, etc) is acceptable as long as its <10% of frames.
    • Instead of using Vulkan directly, games using Unity's Built-in Render Pipeline may opt-in to using ANGLE for Android 17+ devices. These games have until September 30, 2027 to set Vulkan as the primary graphics API. Transitioning to Unity's Universal Render Pipeline is highly recommended to achieve this but is not the only permissible path.

  • All other games can decide to either use Vulkan as the primary graphics API or opt-in to using ANGLE for Android 17+ devices. To opt in to use ANGLE modify the app's manifest file as follows:

    <application android:appCategory="game">
<meta-data android:name="com.android.graphics.driver.prefer_angle" android:value="true" />
</application>

Our default stance is that all games should adopt Vulkan because it offers considerable performance and battery benefits. The following exception recognizes that some games might not have a choice on graphics API.

  • Games that don't control their own rendering and render through HWUI/SKIA (similar to how apps render). These games have no control over their graphics pipeline, and will be moved to Vulkan automatically over the coming versions of Android.
  • If your game uses WebGPU as its rendering API. WebGPU is a new higher level language that uses Vulkan on newer devices and OpenGL ES on older devices. If for some reason WebGPU decides not to use Vulkan on a focus device, that is beyond the control of the developer. We're working on deploying the Vulkan backend on as many devices as possible as quickly as possible.
  • If a game has encountered a blocking issue with Vulkan, and they have reported it and had it accepted by the relevant code-maintainer (For example, a Game Engine, GPU-IP Vendor, or Google), then they may be granted an exemption for an appropriate period of time to find a work around or for the issue to be addressed.
  • A developer may be exempt from this requirement if they are able to reduce their CPU instruction count in a similar fashion to what Vulkan provides. Vulkan provides an approximate 30% reduction in CPU instruction count as compared to other solutions. If the developer can show a similar improvement with an alternative solution, then the use of Vulkan is not required.

Additional resources

For more information on upgrading your game's graphics APIs, see Vulkan.

Reference device list

The following devices are used to test our guidelines. Because Android hardware and features evolve, this list can be updated to ensure comprehensive coverage.

Device list

Year System on a Chip
vendor		 System on a Chip
model		 Manufacturer Marketing name Form factor
2026 GOOGLE TENSOR G5 GOOGLE PIXEL 10 PRO XL PHONE
PIXEL 10 PRO FOLD FOLDABLE
MEDIATEK MT6993 VIVO X300 PHONE
X300 PRO PHONE
OPPO FIND X9 PRO PHONE
FIND X9 PHONE
QTI SM8845 ONEPLUS ONEPLUS 15R PHONE
LENOVO MOTOROLA SIGNATURE PHONE
SM8850 SAMSUNG GALAXY S26 ULTRA PHONE
GALAXY S26 PHONE
GALAXY S26+ PHONE
ONEPLUS ONEPLUS 15 PHONE
OPPO FIND N6 FOLDABLE
XIAOMI XIAOMI 17 PHONE
XIAOMI 17 ULTRA PHONE
LEITZPHONE POWERED BY XIAOMI PHONE
XIAOMI 17 PRO MAX PHONE
SAMSUNG S5E9965 SAMSUNG GALAXY S26 PHONE
GALAXY S26+ PHONE
2025 GOOGLE TENSOR G4 GOOGLE PIXEL 9 PRO XL PHONE
PIXEL 9 PRO FOLD FOLDABLE
MEDIATEK MT6991 XIAOMI XIAOMI 15T PRO PHONE
SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB S11 TABLET
GALAXY TAB S11 ULTRA TABLET
GALAXY TAB S11 ULTRA 5G TABLET
GALAXY TAB S11 5G TABLET
VIVO VIVO X200 PHONE
X200 PRO PHONE
X200T PHONE
OPPO FIND X8 PHONE
FIND X8 PRO PHONE
QTI SM8735 XIAOMI XIAOMI PAD 8 TABLET
SM8750 SAMSUNG GALAXY S25 ULTRA PHONE
GALAXY S25 PHONE
GALAXY S25+ PHONE
GALAXY S25 EDGE PHONE
GALAXY Z FOLD7 FOLDABLE
ONEPLUS ONEPLUS 13 PHONE
ONEPLUS 13S PHONE
PAD 3 TABLET
OPPO FIND N5 FOLDABLE
XIAOMI XIAOMI 15 PHONE
XIAOMI 15 ULTRA PHONE
SONY XPERIA 1 VII PHONE
VIVO IQOO 13 PHONE

Comprehensive testing across every specific model may not be required because several devices in the list use identical SoCs and exhibit comparable performance. Developers are eligible to self-certify for the guidelines once they have successfully verified requirements on at least one device from each listed SoCs:

Phones

Year System on a Chip Devices
2026 Tensor G5 PIXEL 10 PRO XL
2025 Tensor G4 PIXEL 9 PRO XL
2026 MTK MT6993 X300, FIND X9
2025 MTK MT6991 XIAOMI 15T PRO, GALAXY TAB S11, VIVO X200, FIND X8
2026 QCOM SM8845/8850 ONEPLUS 15R, MOTOROLA SIGNATURE, GALAXY S26, ONEPLUS 15, XIAOMI 17
2025 QCOM SM8750 GALAXY S25, ONEPLUS 13, PAD 3, XIAOMI 15. XPERIA 1 VII, IQOO 13
2026 Exynos S5E9965 GALAXY S26

Tablet

Year System on a Chip Devices
2025 MTK MT6991 GALAXY TAB S11
2025 QCOM SM8735 XIAOMI PAD 8
2025 QCOM SM8750 OPPO PAD 3