Call of Duty Mobile may have been quickly overshadowed by Call of Duty: Warzone, but there’s still a place in the world for this portable entry in Activision’s long-running (and bestselling) shooter series. But when we’re all staying at home due to global reasons beyond our control, we don’t need to restrict ourselves to the small screen. Call of Duty Mobile, being a Tencent project, works flawlessly with the gaming giant’s Android emulator, giving us a quick and easy way to play the technological feat on a machine with a bigger screen and superior controls.
The emulator in question is called Gameloop. It was initially marketed as a way for PUBG Mobile players to get involved from their desktop PCs but has since become a hub to play a bunch of very popular mobile games — Call of Duty Mobile being one of them. It’s completely free, legal, and won’t get your account unceremoniously banned. Better yet, it can be configured to add controller support if you’d rather play on the biggest screen in the house. Here’s how to play Call of Duty Mobile on PC.
Recommended reading:
- Be the last one standing with our Call of Duty: Mobile battle royale tips
- Our guide to building the best loadout in Call of Duty: Mobile
- Call of Duty: Warzone guide with tips and tricks to win the war
Using the Gameloop emulator
Known as “Tencent Game Buddy” up until recently, Gameloop is the new name for this handy piece of software. A quick download and installation are all it takes to get in on the action. Keep in mind, you can play other PC games using Gameloop, like PUBG Mobile, Arena of Valor, or Mobile Legends.
Now, one thing to keep in mind is why Tencent allows people to play its touchscreen-focused games with a distinct hardware advantage. Call of Duty Mobile detects who’s using which control scheme. Players are matched only with those playing the same way, eliminating the risk of having hardcore PC players stomp those sliding their thumbs around a 6-inch display.
How to play Call of Duty Mobile on PC
All you need to do to play Call of Duty Mobile on PC is follow the steps below:
• Download Tencent’s “Gameloop” Android emulator here.
• Install Gameloop from the downloaded file
• Click into the Game Center tab
• Click the Call of Duty Mobile banner or image under Recommended (you can also find Call of Duty Mobile by using the search option in the top right)
• Hit Download
At that point, the download and installation should begin automatically. It might even auto-launch, too, so adjust your speaker settings if you don’t want the whole office finding out why you’ve knocked off work 3 hours early. Your Call of Duty Mobile PC experience should kick off from there, but there are a few things you can do to cater the whole thing to the machine you’re playing on.
How to adjust settings through Gameloop
Within the Gameloop software, you can tap the three horizontal line icon in the top-right to find some essential settings like screen resolution, screen capture location, and even which rendering method to use.
The settings under Engine tend to relate to the Gameloop window and the physical size of game windows. To change the active resolution of Call of Duty Mobile, you’ll need to go into the Game tab beneath and tweak things from there.
From a competitive game like Call of Duty Mobile, we’d recommend lowering the settings as much as your eyes can handle for the smoothest experience. If you’d rather witness just how clean and crisp a mobile game can look these days, feel free to crank things as high as you think your PC can take them. Just don’t go expecting miracles — it’s still at the mercy of Android optimization. You’ll probably want to change a few settings within the game itself, too.
How to play Call of Duty Mobile with a controller on PC
You can also play Call of Duty Mobile on PC with many modern gamepads, including an Xbox One controller or DualShock 4. To do so, you’ll need to either plug in a controller or connect using Bluetooth (if your machine supports it). Once your controller is connected, press the Key Mapping option on the right side of the screen from within Gameloop. From there, make sure have Gamepad selected at the top (instead of Keyboard). Once here, make sure you’ve got the correct mode selected — either Multiplayer, Battle Royale, OB, or Bar.
Below that are the secondary keys, so make sure both Direction (left joystick) and Camera (right joystick) are selected. From here, you can right-click on the screen with your mouse to map buttons. For instance, right-click on the screen and a blank selection will appear. You can then press any button on the controller to map it to the game.
Keep doing this until all the controls are mapped. Keep in mind, you don’t have to map every button, but you’ll want to at least have aiming, shooting, reloading, and jumping. Once you’re finished, hit Save in the bottom-right, and then jump into a game to test everything out. From our experience, using a controller isn’t amazing, as there’s an ever-so-slight lag that takes some getting used to. However, if you’re used to using a controller and are against a mouse and keyboard, you at least have the option to do so.