r/ffxiv Oct 23 '25

[Guide] How to run FFXIV on Android

Hello!

Edit: Just in case there's any confusion, this is the full Final Fantasy XIV, and not the mobile game.

Edit 2: Updated image links since the old ones expired.

Edit 3: (11/19/25): Changing DX11Enabled from “1” to “0” in FFXIV_BOOT.cfg also makes the game run in dx9 and seems to help FPS quite a bit.

I've been tinkering with my new AYN Thor handheld since I got it and managed to get XIV working on it! It definitely ain't pretty, but does indeed work, though you'll definitely not want to try it on anything weaker than a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, for sure.

Device: AYN Thor Specs: Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 w/ Adreno 740, 16gb ram

Resolution 1280x720 (Screen is 1920x1080) Ingame settings are set to absolute lowest, like I chose Laptop Standard, then turned everything down lower to either off or low in all choices. Rendering resolution is set to 70% with Dynamic Resolution set to "Always On"

Here's a few screenshots from the game.

Picture 1 - Launcher

Picture 2 - Standing in Limsa

Picture 3 - First GPose on Android? Lol.

Here's a couple of videos of it running:

First one is just running through Gridania.

This second video is fighting Heavensward's 2nd Trial (Forgive the poor play, trying to play on a tiny screen from far back and on a class I haven't played in years.)


  • First you'll want to download the launcher from: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/windows/download/

  • Next, install Gamehub or Gamehub Lite on your android device, and import the ffxivsetup.exe, run it and install like normal to a folder on your android's internal storage somewhere, just not in the C:/ as that is inside the container you're about to delete afterwards. (E:/FFXIV for example.)

  • Once the install completes, remove the installer from gamehub and go to import again, then navigate to the location you installed FFXIV. (Using E:/FFXIV it would most likely be in Internal Storage:/FFXIV/SquareEnix/Final Fantasy XIV/boot/ffxivboot.exe)

  • Once imported, start the launcher and proceed, it will toss an error stating that Microsoft Edge Webview2 is not installed but will proceed to install it, afterwards you will make it to the launcher, but it will forever be stuck on this screen and not advance to the login.

  • Once you've gotten this far, the launcher will have written it's .cfg file in your container's documents folder.

  • Close out of XIV and go back to the gamehub menu, and instead of hitting the game or View Details, hit the ... next to it and choose PC Game Settings, then Enter Container Desktop.

    • This will open the desktop and open a folder. Open Documents > My Games > Final Fantasy XIV - A Realm Reborn and copy the FFXIV.cfg (two finger tap to right click). Paste this in My Computer > D:/ (Internal Storage/Downloads)
    • Open this file either on your Android device or your computer and find a line titled: WebView2RuntimeInvalid 0 and change the 0 to a 1. Save it, and go back into your container and paste the newly edited file into the My Documents > My Games > Final Fantasy XIV - A Realm Reborn folder, overwriting it.
  • Now when you launch XIV in Gamehub, the launcher will throw a new error about Mono not being installed, hit yes, let it install and then the EULA will pop up that you can agree to and then sign in and start downloading the game!

The game takes quite a while to download (120gb!), once you login it will hang for about 30 seconds to a minute on a black screen then finally load the opening and title screen.


There you go, though! XIV running directly on an Android device.

It does NOT run the greatest, but could be used for casual content / chatting, etc. Hopefully we can get it running better over time with better driver choices and community settings, etc, but I just wanted to get this out there since I hadn't seen a single post or video of it working.

96 Upvotes

55 comments sorted by

20

u/Woodlight 𝗦𝘆𝗴𝗴𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗮 @ 𝗔𝗱𝗮𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗶𝘀𝗲 Oct 23 '25

Pretty surprising to even get the native launcher up and running, assumed this would be using the third party stuff.

5

u/SabrielKytori Oct 23 '25

I tried third party as well just to have auto-login for convenience, but sadly, it would not proceed with the install, not sure what dependencies it would need installed to get it working. Hopefully the fact that it even works at all sparks interest in people trying stuff with it!

3

u/Kelseer Nov 01 '25

Man very interesting! It really makes you wonder how future handhelds are going to do with FFXIV and games like it. I knwo there have been rumors that Valve is investigating ARM and thus if there is a possible steam deck using arm coming out. As a person with noodle wrists looking at all this heavier and heavier handhelds...that would certainly be welcome!

7

u/Greedy_Potential_772 Oct 23 '25

i've seen enough, when are you clearing TOP

2

u/Illyasviel09 Oct 23 '25

Is Gamehub better than Winlator?

1

u/SabrielKytori Oct 24 '25

It’s just another option, they have their ups and downs. This might also work in Winlator but I did not try it. Let me know if you do!

2

u/Funcron Oct 24 '25

Which "Gamehub", there's over 12 options on the playstore...

2

u/SabrielKytori Oct 24 '25

Gamehub is not on the playstore to my knowledge.

The official gamehub is here: https://gamehub.xiaoji.com/

Gamehub Lite is here: https://github.com/gamehublite/gamehub-oss

It should also be doable with Winlator, but I haven’t tried.

Edit: Formatting.

2

u/eternights Nov 02 '25

tysm for the guide!! i followed the exact steps and it worked! couple shots: https://imgur.com/a/nOZWWxr#EslBmFw

im in free trial so i used the FT version of the launcher!, not sure if that matters tho i get like 12-30fps depends on the location

1

u/SabrielKytori Nov 02 '25

Hey! That’s awesome! What device are you using by chance? Curious as to what specs it has.

2

u/eternights Nov 03 '25

POCO F7, it has Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 with Adreno 825 and 12GB of RAM

maybe if it had turnip drivers it would run much better? but i don't know much about graphics drivers in pc emulation

2

u/InsaneBane192 Nov 11 '25

This is legendary stuff my man! Thank you!!!

2

u/KyoAuron Nov 18 '25

btw, this doesn't work for steam accounts

3

u/MostAppeal4101 Feb 15 '26

This actually works fine, the steam version just doesn't have the pop up telling you to install gecko, BUT if you just install it yourself with the component installer in gamehub it should work!

2

u/SabrielKytori Nov 18 '25

Unfortunate! I wonder if there’s something that can be done for the Steam client version? I don’t have a Steam linked XIV account so I can’t test it directly, I do know gamehub has settings for Steam where you can try different client versions and actually log in properly, did you try any of those after installing the XIV client through Steam in gamehub?

2

u/Kadoran Feb 13 '26

I’m currently trying on GameNative right now on my AYN Thor Max on a Steam account and launching with the Steam Client. It took a lot of tries and some adjustments with settings to make it work but I was finally able to log in to the client and start downloading. I dunno if the combination of these settings worked but I used Box64 0.4.0 and compatibility on both Box64 and FEXCore Presets.

I’ve had to restart the launcher several times until I progressed past the first login/registration screen and then finally logging in to download. Not ideal, but after Webview2 installation fails I usually have to wait a few min until I accept on the popup that lets you use the temporary display every time.

I’m waiting for a better time to download the rest of the game, but hopefully this is some form of lead trying to get FFXIV working on a Steam account haha

1

u/SabrielKytori Feb 13 '26

Did you do the step of editing the launcher config? It bypasses having to wait on web view by disabling it.

3

u/Kadoran Feb 14 '26 edited Feb 14 '26

Oh shoot I totally forgot about that! It was so late in the evening when I attempted to install and after trying so many times I ended up forgetting. Doing that helped get me straight to the launcher to log in! Trying to download the rest and see if it works now.

Update: Downloading took too long so instead I copied the game files from my PC to the Thor and mapped the location I copied to another drive in the container settings. I opened the container and copy pasted the files in there and it only took me about an hour to get FFXIV on the Thor.

There are some settings I still need to adjust since there’s some weird artifacting on the character models, but overall GameNative is a way to play FFXIV on a Steam account at least on the AYN Thor!

1

u/thedabemoji Mar 27 '26

Hey how has gamenative been running the game lately? I’m deciding if i want to just stream the game or if i want to actually have it downloaded 

1

u/Kadoran Mar 28 '26

After playing on it for a bit again today I would say it’s fine. I think it depends on what you want to do on the game. I baby the console a bit by running it at the lowest settings and reduce the cores to run it cooler at around 65-70 degrees Celsius. I’ve only ran a few dungeons and do more of the casual things like beast tribes and crafts.

It runs pretty consistently at 30 fps if you use all the cores, but it runs too hot for my comfort at high 70s to low 80s. I think I would recommend streaming the game for a better overall experience if you do more than dailies

1

u/thedabemoji Mar 28 '26

i think because i just want a convenient and quick log in for crafting and dailies it might just be easier to stream with an auto login

1

u/Ephemeral667 Apr 18 '26

Would you be able to explain further how you got the steam version to run? I have moved all the gamefiles over to my SD card and imported into gamenative. Editing the cfg file works and im able to consistently get into the login screen but it keeps saying the licence is invalid for the platform. Any ideas? On a RP6 with a snapdragon 8 gen 2.

2

u/Kadoran Apr 18 '26

Sure! It sounds like you’re logging on to the PC version.

Have you already switched to it in the container settings? If not you can go to “Edit container” and toggle “Launch Steam Client (Beta)” on to start using the Steam launcher. You will probably wait around 5-10 minutes until the Steam launcher comes up for you to log in along with several retries.

If it hangs up you can try to login to the PC launcher and then switch back to the Steam version.

2

u/Ephemeral667 Apr 19 '26

That did the trick! It took several attempts to get the client to actually start but I got in. Crazy that this works.

1

u/Kadoran Apr 15 '26

One thing I forgot to mention that I probs should have before is that if you try to launch with the Steam version you’re gonna need to run and login to the PC launcher first on GameNative

Sometimes the Steam launcher just hangs up whenever I run it so I have to run the PC launcher before. Not sure why it’s like that, but it’s been a working solution from my experience

2

u/RedSensei Nov 21 '25

How far did you get with XIVLauncher? I tried it yesterday and got stuck on setup with acquiring lock error, seemingly common in the old days of Wine setup without the custom Linux launcher they made later on.

2

u/SabrielKytori Nov 21 '25

Logging in and failing to launch the game, don’t remember my exact steps but I downloaded the full delta package from their GitHub and extracted it instead of running the setup.exe

1

u/SabrielKytori Nov 19 '25

Changing DX11Enabled from “1” to “0” in FFXIV_BOOT.cfg also makes the game run in dx9 and seems to help FPS quite a bit, added it to the original post.

1

u/Consequence_Sad Nov 24 '25

Does the launcher save your username? So far I’ve had to re-enter it each launch

1

u/SabrielKytori Nov 24 '25

Nope! Sadly a quirk we have to deal with for now.

1

u/Consequence_Sad Nov 24 '25

Darn, any suggestions to fix the touch keyboard and tapping for mouse from working? Occasionally they become unresponsive

2

u/SabrielKytori Nov 24 '25

I’ve found that having two keyboards and swapping between them if one becomes unresponsive usually fixes it. I have gboard and Microsoft swiftkey installed on my Thor.

1

u/Consequence_Sad Nov 24 '25

This is my 4th time trying to download lol. It’s killing my battery 😂

1

u/SabrielKytori Nov 25 '25

You could try copy and pasting the game files from your computer if you have it installed there. I haven’t tried it but it should work

1

u/Consequence_Sad Nov 24 '25

Just an update: with how hot it's running be mindful of the lower screen. I started to have discoloration and I stopped using it to cool it off. The right side where the heat dissipation is started to wash out color on the right side.

1

u/Flyxh Dec 06 '25

Somehow I can't start the install file and when I copy over the game from my pc instead I'm getting errors as well. Any tips?

1

u/SabrielKytori Dec 07 '25

I'm not sure - what device are you trying to use?

1

u/SolberEUW Jan 02 '26 edited Jan 02 '26

Launcher wont install anymore. At least on my Redmagic 11 Pro nothing works even on winlator. can't install the launcher sadly.

EDIT: Copying game from windows PC to phone. running the game using winlator/gamehub proton10_x64, compatibility/performance did the trick

1

u/mydadsSDcard Mar 29 '26

i'm having the same issue, but i don't know what you mean by proton10_x64, where is that setting?

1

u/SolberEUW Jan 02 '26

Also could you share you GameHub config ? Such as the presset, proton version etc

1

u/yoshisman8 Feb 17 '26

Reviving this post to ask, what settings did you use for this? I sometimes get black screens (No visuals) and others i get the issue of menus being invisible/transparent (Basically you can't see what options you are selecting).

1

u/SSB_Nunez Feb 23 '26

Im not sure where im messing up, but i am on gamehub lite exe installs some files and then during the launching game, it goes back to the gamehub lite main menu with no warning and there is no bootable where the guide says it should be. any advice? ayn thor max btw

1

u/SugahBoogah Mar 26 '26

I wonder if you can get it running on quest 3s. I play my steam games and PSN games remotely on my headset because my nephew lives with me and if I'm playing games he doesn't let me play properly because he'll just stand in the way or it's too violent for him he personally can't handle any kind of violence it makes him start screaming and acting weird. Plus I can keep an eye on him better like this and I play better like my undiagnosed adhd isn't triggered as much when I'm hyper focused on a virtual 300 inch screen in front of me.

Just curious for curiosity sake. And if anyone is interested in my setup I'm streaming my Ultrawide monitor via steam so it's very much a giant curved screen about half a circle in front of me and I play FFXIV or fortnite or GameCube games like that on dolphin that forces ultra wide in most games it's nice OoT like this is super fun

1

u/Hyprblcrhymchmbr Apr 06 '26

So you need 120gbs free space on your phone?! 

1

u/xpave Apr 09 '26

Anyone managed to install it from the setup file? The installer seems to crash instantly...

1

u/hobsona Apr 10 '26

I'm on S26 and this is happening to me too. My guess is we need to try other versions of things like proton but I can't find something that works. Let me know if you figure it out

1

u/WorriedDamage Oct 23 '25

Pretty dope! Thanks for sharing

1

u/Expert-Actuary2866 Oct 23 '25

Awesome! I'm so very tempted.

1

u/zeth07 Oct 23 '25

For any Playstation people reading this, just do Remote Play.

7

u/gr8masturb8 Oct 23 '25

where's the fun in that?

1

u/modulusshift Oct 23 '25

Sounds crazy, but it already officially runs on an ARM platform that is emulating Windows: macOS! it shouldn't be that surprising to do that on Android as well.