Google Messages is about to be way more fun to use

Google Messages isn’t the app or service you think of when you think about playing games on your phone. You think about the Play Store and the many game choices that are available there for download. Games of all types, and whatever strikes your fancy, the Play Store tends to have it, from RPGs to strategy games to action adventure titles. It even has something for fans of brain-teasing puzzles.

That being said, Google Messages is shaping up to be a place where you can play games according to a new report. With Google currently developing the capability to play games directly in a chat with another person. However, it’s not clear just yet if Google is actually going to finalize development and roll the feature out. Nor is it clear when Google would do if the plan is to actually get this feature off the ground.

References to a games feature was found in Google Messages

As reported by Android Authority, and initially spotted by Abhishek Yadav on X, strings inside the Google Messages app with the build version “messages.android_20261002_00_RC00.phone.openbeta_dynamic” reference games being playable inside chats. Midnight is suspected to be the codename that Google is using for this feature, and there are several different game types referenced in those strings as well.

This includes Word Scramble, Chess, Cup Pong, Checkers, Pool, Basketball, Four In A Row, Crazy 8s, and Darts. These are the only games that appear in the code strings as of now. Apple’s iMessage has offered a similar feature for quite some time and Facebook’s Messenger has had games playable between two people for a while as well, so Google wouldn’t be re-inventing the wheel here, just joining the club. It’s noted that there’s no indication that multiplayer will be possible, but it wouldn’t make sense for the games to be available in this app if that wasn’t Google’s intention.