Newsletter
Google is bringing a minor redesign to the Play Games in the bear future as it appears to have started going live for some users who have already received the latest version of the app in an update, which started going out sometime yesterday. The new look more or less seems to focus on making every main feature accessible from the bottom navigation bar.
The current version of the app already has everything down in this location except for the user profile. This is currently located in the top right corner of the application and can be accessed by tapping on your player profile icon. Moving forward in the new version of the app it’ll be located as the right-most icon in the bottom navigation bar alongside the other tabs.
My Games is still going to be present but Google is splitting up its features and placing them into two separate tabs. A full list of the games you have installed on your device will still be listed in Library but instead of having this list pop up via a swipe up option on the main My Games page Google has made a tab for it and placed it in the bottom bar.
My Games has also now been renamed to Home, and will feature various content like games which you can play instantly, as well as a collection of games that you have played in the past recently which will be listed under a continue playing label. Other elements of the app such as the search button and the overflow menu accessible from the three dot button are still in the same place they’ve always been.
Google likes to curate the lists of apps and games that it thinks should be featured in the Play Store, and it’s doing a similar thing here with Play Games on the new Home feed tab as there will rotating picks of games which it lists as Top Three “must play” games that you should take a look at.
These might be suggestions based on games that you already play, meaning games that are considered Top Three but are still similar to other games and genres you have interest in, or they could be completely curated and the same for everyone until they’re swapped out for new picks.
The new version of the app will still have a Dark Mode of course, a feature which was rolled out to the app late in 2018. If you don’t have the new app design yet then you may not have the most recent version of Play Games or it may be a combination of that and the fact that Google will need to flip the switch on something on its end.
Since there are no new major features to speak of, sitting tight and just waiting for the redesign to show up is about all that users can do. It’s already for some users, so the wait to get the new look probably won’t be a long one and may show up for most or all users that have it installed before the end of the weekend.
