Hollow Knight: Silksong, one of the hottest games of the year with a reported five million players in its first week, didn’t launch on smartphones. But that won’t stop you from playing it on Android — because a new leap in Windows to Android emulation means you can easily install and run the Steam version on flagship phones like my Galaxy S25.
I’m talking about GameHub, the app from Chinese mobile gamepad manufacturer GameSir, which just launched version 5.0 with two key features that help it rise above the Windows-on-phone emulation scene.
First, it automatically configures itself with the right graphics drivers, translation layer, and other components when you launch the game — something that I spent hours trying to do manually with rivals Winlator, GameNative, and an earlier version of GameHub with far worse results. Second and just as importantly: it can download your Steam savegames from your PC.
The result: you can download this app, log into your Steam account, tap to install the game, tap to play the game, tap a couple more times to enable Steam cloud saves… and then you’re playing a Steam game on a phone! Unfortunately, it doesn’t yet work the other way around: as of September 11th, GameSir was actively working on getting your savegames to upload and sync back to your Steam PCs, too, but it’s still not working in Silksong.
Is it worth it? On my vanilla Samsung Galaxy S25, this PC game really does feel playable on a phone, at least once I attach a USB-C gamepad with an integrated cooler like the GameSir X3 Pro I’m testing right now. I played over an hour yesterday and didn’t feel the need to pick up my Steam Deck instead.
1/8Image by Sean Hollister / The Verge
With a normal PS5 controller, I saw framerates anywhere between 50 and 120 frames per second at my phone’s full, widescreen native resolution — did I mention GameHub supports widescreen and HDR? — and it runs a bit better at 720p.
But with the X3 Pro I was able to maintain framerates of over 100fps even in big fights, so long as I plugged the gamepad’s Peltier cooling plate and noisy fan into USB-C power. I guess I shouldn’t make fun of phone coolers anymore!
It’s not as smooth as my Steam Deck or other handhelds without that added cooling: when my phone is thermally throttling, moments where it hits 50 or 60fps don’t feel like 50fps or 60fps, they feel like the game is borderline unplayable. But I was pleased to see the cooling solution do its job! I imagine a larger Galaxy phone, or a phone designed for gaming, or a dedicated Android handheld, would have an easier time.
You probably won’t want to use a phone much weaker than the S25 for this quick-reflex game. When I tried GameHub and Silksong on an older Pixel 9 with a Tensor G4, it balanced on the knife’s edge of playability, and definitely fell off without a cooler attached. The Pixel 9 also doesn’t currently let me watch the game’s cutscenes, a bit of a dealbreaker if you’re buying the game to play on phone, though the Galaxy S25 plays cutscenes fine as of this latest GameHub release.
Some in the Android emulation community have turned to the Nintendo Switch emulator Eden for better sustained performance in Silksong, and I’ve heard that one runs at a stable 120fps without extra cooling. But that would require somehow obtaining a downloadable copy of the Switch version of the game, and it might be difficult to transfer saves with a real Switch.
With GameHub, I’m downloading my legitimately purchased games and saves from Steam itself. That’s amazing.
Windows emulation on Android is looking like a game-changer. And Silksong is just one of the games it might be about to change. Today, that’s because this game requires an incredibly low amount of performance and power to play, but future phones might carve out more and more of the PC game library.
Just don’t rely on GameHub too much yet. Even though many are enthusiastic about the big improvements in GameHub 5.0, others are complaining that it broke games that were previously working. It could be worth waiting for the dust to settle.
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