Get started with Play Games Sidekick

Play Games Sidekick is an in-game overlay present on select Play-installed games that gives you quick access to your gamer profile, achievements, Play Points offers, and essential gaming utilities without leaving your game. It's designed to make your gaming sessions more fun.

The in-game overlay is lightweight and optimized to have no perceivable impact on game performance or battery life, so you can focus on playing.

What you can do with Sidekick

You can access Sidekick during gaming to get quick help for any of your gaming needs. Here’s what you can do:

• Access gaming utilities: Take a screenshot, start a screen recording, turn on Do Not Disturb (DND) mode for games, or start a YouTube Livestream.
• Track your gaming progress: Instantly check your gamer profile, track your achievements, and view your streaks.
• Find offers from Play: Find game-specific offers, redeem Play Points for coupons, start points boosters right when you need them, or view eligible quests.
• Compete with others with Play Leagues: Join a league, track your ranking, and claim rewards.
• See your friends activity: See progress from players you follow for the game you are playing, in real-time.
• Create a Play Games profile: You can now access Sidekick and create a profile without leaving the game.
• Keep up-to-date whilst you play: Added support for watching developer and community videos in a floating, picture-in-picture window.
• Complete your Quests: Earn extra rewards, such as Google Play Points, by completing a series of steps.

Playback with Sidekick

Relive and share your gaming moments instantly. With Playback, you can capture screenshots and record up to 30 seconds of gameplay video on your device retroactively. Whenever you're ready to review your top highlights and share with friends and family, open Sidekick.

Availability: Playback is available for compatible mobile phones.

1. Playback auto-captures your gaming moments and is ON by default for compatible devices. To turn off Playback capture in settings
   1. Open Sidekick
   2. Select the three dot menu and select settings
   3. Under "Playbacks," toggle the ON switch to OFF

How to open and manage the visibility of Sidekick

Sidekick is designed to be easy to access and adjust to your preferences. To find it, first you'll need to sign into your Play Games profile on the Google Play Store app or create one. When you start any supported game installed from Google Play, a small, floating handle will automatically appear on the edge of your screen.

If you prefer not having the Sidekick handle on top of your game, you can choose to access Sidekick through a persistent notification instead. Learn how to create a Play Games profile.

• To open Sidekick: Simply drag the floating icon toward the center of your screen. If you have switched to the notification entry point, swipe down from the top of your screen and tap the persistent Play Games notification.
• To move the entry point: Press and hold the entry point, then drag it up or down along the edge of the screen to a new position or move it to the other side of the screen that doesn't interfere with your gameplay.
• To change the visibility of the entry point: Tap the Settings icon at the top of Sidekick.
• Turn off Sidekick: If you prefer not to find the floating icon at all, you can turn it off completely.
  1. To open the overlay, drag the floating icon to the center of your screen.
  2. At the top, tap Settings Show/Hide Play Sidekick to go to Play Store Settings.
  3. On the Play Store Settings General Google Play Games, turn off Show Play Sidekick.

This will stop showing the in-game overlay notch on all the games.

Understanding your in-game profile

The overlay displays your gamer profile information—including your achievements, Play Points balance, and level progress—based on the active account in your Google Play Store app. You will not find Sidekick if your active account in the Play Store app doesn’t have a gamer profile. Learn how to create a gamer profile.

Important: For information like your achievements and progress to sync correctly, the Google Account you use in the Play Store must be the same one you use to sign into your games.

If the data displayed in Sidekick for achievements, streaks, and quests is inconsistent with your actual in-game progress, the game uses a separate Google Account for its sign in. For instance, new achievements unlocked in the game won’t be reflected within the in-game overlay.

To fix the issue, in the Play Store app, you must change the Play Games profile currently signed in to the game to match the gamer profile as follows:

1. Open the Google Play Store app.
2. At the top right, tap your Profile icon.
3. Tap Settings General Play Games Profile.
4. Tap Sign in account.
5. To change the account for your game, select Change.
6. Select the account for your Play Games profile.
7. Tap Save.