RimDroid

RimDroid is an unofficial, community-developed compatibility launcher that runs the native Linux x86_64 build of RimWorld on ARM64 Android devices, with GPU rendering, touch controls, gamepad support, and mods.

[!NOTE] RimDroid requires the Linux version of RimWorld and any DLC you want to use. Steam and GOG users can download the game and DLC they own right in the app; you can also import your own game files as a ZIP.

[!WARNING] The app is still in beta. All tested devices launch the game, but some need Compatibility mode and behaviour is still per-device, not per-GPU brand.

Features

• ✔️ Runs RimWorld 1.6 on ARM64 phones; RimWorld 1.5 stays available as legacy
• ✔️ Native engine (RimWorld 1.6, experimental, the default for new instances) — the game's own engine built for Android, nothing emulated: the fastest way to play and the lightest on memory
• ✔️ Native ARM64 Mono (RimWorld 1.6 on the emulated engine) — the game's own code runs natively instead of through x86 emulation, noticeably faster at high game speed
• ✔️ Editable on-screen touch controls — move / resize / opacity, grid snapping, add buttons bound to any key or mouse action
• ✔️ In-app downloads — get the game and DLC from Steam or GOG, and Workshop mods and whole Workshop collections from Steam
• ✔️ Steam Cloud saves — pull your PC saves onto the phone and send them back
• ✔️ Mods — Harmony patching works (tested: RimHUD, Pick Up And Haul, Camera+)
• ✔️ Mods screen — switch mods on and off, delete them, sort the load order by the mods' own rules (with warnings about missing and incompatible mods), drag to reorder
• ✔️ Multiple instances — each install is a card with its own settings (engine, renderer, driver, controls), and can get its own home-screen shortcut
• ✔️ Gamepad support with a button-remapping wizard for controllers with swapped buttons
• ✔️ Physical keyboard and mouse
• ✔️ Compatibility mode — helps stubborn devices launch and lets mods load (Settings → Advanced)
• ✔️ In-game display: Off / FPS / Full info — an FPS counter, or a bar with GPU and CPU load, memory, power draw, temperature and an FPS graph; plus a frame rate limit (Settings → Frame rate)
• ✔️ Texture compression and render resolution — less memory and more FPS on weaker phones
• ✔️ Custom Vulkan driver import — a raw Turnip .so or an AdrenoTools .zip
• ✔️ Save / Settings / layout import & export
• ✔️ In-app wiki in English, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and Simplified Chinese
• ✔️ Haptics, night mode, and Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and Simplified Chinese translations
• ✔️ On-screen keyboard for text fields — Latin letters, RimWorld 1.6 only
• ✔️ CJK fonts (Chinese / Japanese / Korean) — install the special RimDroidCJK mod

Project status & what to expect

RimDroid is young — a few months old (started in May 2026), built by one person, and still in active development. That context matters if you're comparing it to more established Android launchers like GameHub or GameNative: those comparisons are fair and interesting, but please keep the scale in mind. This is an early solo project, and it will keep getting better.

A few honest notes so expectations land right:

• RimWorld is extremely CPU-heavy, and emulation adds cost on top of that. RimDroid launches on a wide range of phones — but launching is not the same as playing comfortably. A fresh 3-colonist start runs far lighter than a mature colony with dozens of pawns, animals, and running systems. The bigger and older your colony gets, the more CPU it demands — and the more even a strong phone will feel it.
• Future updates will bring real improvements, but the bottleneck is the simulation itself. Don't expect miracles that turn a budget phone into a desktop.
• The closer your device is to a current flagship, the better your experience — especially frame rate, and how well things hold up as the colony grows.

If you're used to long PC sessions: RimDroid has not been tested with more than ~50 mods. How it behaves on large, long-running, heavily-modded saves is genuinely unknown right now. If that's your style, a near-flagship device gives you the best odds — but treat big modlists as experimental for now.

We'd rather set expectations honestly than overpromise.

Device compatibility

All tested devices now launch the game. Some run great out of the box; others may need Compatibility mode (Settings → Advanced).

System requirements

RimDroid runs on a wide range of phones, but how well it plays depends heavily on your hardware and on how big your colony and mod list are. RimWorld is CPU-bound under emulation, so a phone can launch the game and still slow down as a colony matures.

• To launch and play (small / early colonies): Android 11+, ARM64, 6 GB RAM, ~5–10 GB free storage, a copy of RimWorld you own (Steam/GOG). Mid-range phones fall here. Expect single-digit to low-teens FPS on large, mature saves — one real report saw a ~300-day colony run around 8–11 FPS on mid-range hardware (playable if you're patient, not smooth).
• Recommended (smoother play, room to grow): 8 GB+ RAM and a recent flagship-class chip. Adreno GPUs currently have the most mature driver path (Turnip/Zink); other GPUs work but may need extra tweaks.
• Large / long / heavily-modded PC-style saves (experimental): the newest flagship you can get, 12 GB+ RAM. This is untested territory — the closer to a current flagship, the better your odds.

Because the game is CPU-bound, on weaker phones the in-game speed setting may not change your FPS — all speeds can look the same. That's expected: the simulation, not rendering, is the limit.

Getting the best performance

• Turn on your phone's game booster and set it to its highest-performance profile. Most phones have one — Samsung Game Booster, Xiaomi/POCO Game Turbo, Realme/OPPO/OnePlus Game Space, vivo/iQOO Ultra Game Mode, Infinix/Tecno Game Mode. RimDroid registers itself as a game, so these tools should detect it automatically — just make sure the profile isn't "balanced" or a battery-saver.
• Install a performance mod such as RocketMan. The bottleneck is the CPU, not the GPU, and these mods cut the simulation cost directly — the single biggest thing you can do.
• Keep the colony and mod list modest on weaker devices. RimWorld's cost grows with the colony: a fresh small map is light; a large, old, event-heavy colony is far heavier.
• Close background apps so the game gets the RAM and CPU to itself.

Roadmap

• Expand GPU/device compatibility
• Fixed the "colonists missing after load" bug at its root (in box64)
• In-game audio
• On-screen keyboard for text fields (Latin letters, RimWorld 1.6)
• Resolution / render-scale options for more FPS on weaker GPUs
• Native ARM64 Mono for RimWorld 1.6
• Game and DLC downloads from GOG
• Steam Cloud saves
• Native engine for RimWorld 1.6
• Mods screen with load-order sorting; Workshop collections
• Typing in more languages with the on-screen keyboard
• Quality-of-life features
• Stable release, out of beta — coming soon

How it works

RimWorld officially ships only for x86_64. RimDroid runs the native Linux build directly on ARM64: box64 emulates the x86_64 Unity engine in-process. On RimWorld 1.6 the game's own code runs on a native ARM64 build of Unity's Mono by default (1.5, and 1.6 with Native ARM64 Mono off, emulate Mono too). Graphics go through your phone's real GPU, and Android touch and gamepad input is injected straight into the game. On RimWorld 1.6 an instance can also use the native engine: the game's own engine built for Android, with nothing emulated.

There are two renderers, switchable per instance in Settings → Video. Zink (Mesa) turns the game's OpenGL into Vulkan and is the default. MobileGlues turns it into OpenGL ES instead and needs no Vulkan at all.

Build

• Android Studio, JDK 21 (see gradle.properties)
• box64/ is a fork (udarmolota/rimdroid-box64); libzfa.so (Mesa + Zink) is built via GitHub Actions
• libmobileglues.so ships unmodified from MobileGlues in the bundled libraries

Supporting development

This is an independent project. To help keep it going, contributions are welcome via Ko-Fi.

Feedback

Please report issues or request features via GitHub Issues. Tap Report a bug in the app's side menu right after the problem happens — attach the zip so we can see what your device is doing.

Running a big or long-lived colony? Tell us how it holds up — long-save reports are exactly the data we're missing, and they're how the device recommendations here will get more precise.

Credits & Third-Party Sources

• box64 — x86_64→ARM64 emulation backend
• Mono (Unity fork) — native ARM64 runtime behind the "Native ARM64 Mono" switch, on by default for RimWorld 1.6
• MobileGlues by MobileGL-Dev — the second renderer (OpenGL→OpenGL ES)
• Mesa / Zink — GPU rendering (OpenGL→Vulkan)
• Turnip / libvulkan_freedreno — Adreno Vulkan driver
• Winlator by BrunoSX (LGPL-2.1) — the in-process X11 server used for RimWorld 1.6, ported from winlator-app
• liblinkernsbypass — Android linker namespace access
• Harmony — required by mods
• Zomdroid (MIT) — architecture reference and inspiration; the gamepad remapper, the on-screen controls layout model and the controls editor are ported from it