Favorite Games for Android TV
Recently unboxed a fancy new Android TV and looking for some good games to play? Lifewire has you covered. Here’s a list of our favorite games for Android TV. These picks cover the gamut of role-playing games, retro titles, and more.
Machinarium
What We Like
- The hand-drawn visuals.
What We Don’t Like
- It’s a bit short.
This award-winning indie adventure game from Amanita Design tells the story of a little robot named Josef who’s searching for his girlfriend, Berta. Along the way, he’ll uncover a plot by the Black Cap Brotherhood and solve a variety of logic puzzles, brain teasers, and a mini-game.
There’s no dialogue, except for some tutorial screens. Instead, the game tells its story via its visuals, animated thought bubbles, and a beautiful soundtrack composed by Floex.
Download Machinarium
This War of Mine
What We Like
- Moral decisions that feel weighty and consequential.
What We Don’t Like
- The subject matter is a bit of a bummer.
Award-winning survival-themed strategy game This War of Mine has sold an impressive 9 million copies since its 2015 launch and has generally received positive reviews from critics.
Inspired by the 1992–96 Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War, this Android TV game focuses on the daily lives of civilians caught up in an armed conflict. Trapped in their homes during the day, at night they struggle to find supplies, evade soldiers, and fight off hostile scavengers.
Surviving often means making difficult decisions—do you try to protect everyone or sacrifice some for the greater good?
Download This War of Mine
Double Dragon Trilogy
What We Like
- It’s one of gaming’s seminal franchises all in one digital collection.
What We Don’t Like
- Nothing—it’s a classic for a reason.
Double Dragon is the grandpappy of beat-em-up action games. First released in arcades in 1987, it begins with one of the most recognizable video game openings of all time—the kidnapping of a woman named Marian by the Black Shadows Gang.
Her boyfriend, Billy, and his brother, Jimmy, are both martial arts experts, so they punch, kick, knee, and head-butt their way through an assortment of bad guys and levels to get her back.
The Double Dragon Trilogy includes all three installments of the series, optimized for mobile. Players looking for something closer to the 1987 experience can pick the “original” difficulty option or pick “expert” for a more significant challenge.
Download Double Dragon Trilogy
Death Road to Canada
What We Like
- Randomized locations, events, etc. provides lots of replay.
What We Don’t Like
- A compatible game controller is required to play.
Developer Noodlecake Studios calls Death Road to Canada a “randomly-generated road trip action-RPG” where you “manage a group of jerks as they explore cities, find weird people, and face up to 500 zombies at once.”
Everything is randomized, including the locations, events, and survivors’ personalities. There are also special events, rare encounters, and unique recruits, so each playthrough is nearly guaranteed to be different. The replay value of this game is massive.
Download Death Road to Canada
Crossy Road
What We Like
- Complete daily quests.
- Play offline.
What We Don’t Like
- It lags for some users.
Developed and released by indie studio Hipster Whale in 2014, Crossy Road is a viral hit with over 300 million players worldwide. It’s like Frogger but with a chicken.
The idea is to cross an endless series of roads filled with dangerous obstacles for as long as possible without getting splattered. There are also coins scattered throughout the levels. Collecting them lets you unlock over 200 new characters, many of which are references to pop culture like the Android logo robot and comics character Archie.
Download Crossy Road
The Wolf Among Us
What We Like
- Excellent storytelling and voice acting.
- A fascinating setting based on the Fables comic series.
What We Don’t Like
- The demise of Telltale Games means there won’t be a sequel.
While developer Telltale Games closed in September 2018, you can still download its excellent episodic adventure games on Android TV. The Wolf Among Us is one of its best.
Based on DC Vertigo’s award-winning Fables comic book series, it follows fairy tale gumshoe, Bigby Wolf, as he investigates a gruesome murder. Like most Telltale titles, it features deft storytelling, excellent voice acting, and harrowing moral choices.
Several other Telltale games are available for Android TV as well, and they’re all worth checking out.
Download The Wolf Among Us
Goat Simulator
What We Like
- It’s ridiculous fun.
What We Don’t Like
- You need a game controller to play.
Coffee Stain Publishing’s chaotic Goat Simulator is dumb in the best way. Its premise is simple: you are a goat; a physics-defying, nigh-indestructible goat who causes as much mayhem as possible.
The developer compares it to an old-school skating game, but instead of doing ollies, you’re causing explosions, smashing property, and generally wrecking things. It’s also filled with bugs and glitches, but that’s all part of its charm.
Coffee Stain is committed to keeping everything except game-breaking issues in the game because “everything else is hilarious.”
Download Goat Simulator
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
What We Like
- It’s one of the best RPGs of all time.
What We Don’t Like
- The combat is a bit dated.
Widely considered one of the best role-playing games of all time, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic takes place four thousand years before the rise of the Galactic Empire. Sith Lord Darth Malak has attacked the Republic with an armada, and it’s up to the player to gather a party full of heroes and stop him.
The Android TV version features iconic Star Wars locations like Tatooine and Kashyyk, dozens of different Force powers, a streamlined user interface, full HID controller support, and more.
This is the full KOTOR experience, with dozens of hours of gameplay, memorable characters, and sharp storytelling.
Download Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
