diff --git a/styx-test/src/main/java/com/spotify/styx/storage/DatastoreEmulator.java b/styx-test/src/main/java/com/spotify/styx/storage/DatastoreEmulator.java
index 8df18dceb8..c3019d49ff 100644
--- a/styx-test/src/main/java/com/spotify/styx/storage/DatastoreEmulator.java
+++ b/styx-test/src/main/java/com/spotify/styx/storage/DatastoreEmulator.java
@@ -79,7 +79,9 @@ private void assertGcloudDatastoreEmulator() {
       var activeRunner = activeRunnerField.get(helper);
       return activeRunner.getClass();
     }).get();
-    if (!runnerClass.getName().equals("com.google.cloud.testing.BaseEmulatorHelper$GcloudEmulatorRunner")) {
+    if (!runnerClass.getName().equals("com.google.cloud.testing.BaseEmulatorHelper$GcloudEmulatorRunner")
+            && !runnerClass.getName().equals("com.google.cloud.testing.BaseEmulatorHelper$DownloadableEmulatorRunner"))
+    {
       throw new AssertionError("Not using gcloud sdk datastore emulator, please run: "
                                + "gcloud components install beta cloud-datastore-emulator");
     }
diff --git a/styx-test/src/test/java/com/spotify/styx/storage/DatastoreEmulatorTest.java b/styx-test/src/test/java/com/spotify/styx/storage/DatastoreEmulatorTest.java
index 2556ce4703..bed47b10fa 100644
--- a/styx-test/src/test/java/com/spotify/styx/storage/DatastoreEmulatorTest.java
+++ b/styx-test/src/test/java/com/spotify/styx/storage/DatastoreEmulatorTest.java
@@ -23,13 +23,12 @@
 import static org.hamcrest.MatcherAssert.assertThat;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.is;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.nullValue;
+import static org.junit.Assert.fail;
 
 import com.google.cloud.datastore.Datastore;
 import com.google.cloud.datastore.Entity;
 import junitparams.JUnitParamsRunner;
 import junitparams.Parameters;
-import org.hamcrest.Matchers;
-import org.junit.Assert;
 import org.junit.ClassRule;
 import org.junit.Rule;
 import org.junit.Test;
@@ -64,12 +63,13 @@ public void testEmulator(Datastore client) {
   }
 
   @Test
-  public void shouldFailIfNotGcloudEmulator() throws InterruptedException {
-    environmentVariables.clear("PATH");
+  public void shouldBeGcloudEmulator()  {
     var emulator = new DatastoreEmulator();
 
-    var exception = Assert.assertThrows(AssertionError.class, emulator::before);
-
-    assertThat(exception.getMessage(), Matchers.startsWith("Not using gcloud sdk datastore emulator"));
+    try {
+      emulator.before();
+    } catch (Exception e) {
+      fail("Not using gcloud sdk datastore emulator");
+    }
   }
 }