Stadia now works w/ controllers on Android TV as it inches towards official support

Ben Schoon | Aug 3 2020 - 11:41 am PT

Google Stadia has been expanding its list of games and features rapidly as of late, but Android TV support has still remained pretty quiet. Recent updates made gameplay possible, and now another new version is making Stadia on Android TV play better with a controller.

When Stadia first started working on Android TV, it was a bit of a pain to use. You needed to have a game controller for playing, obviously, but also a mouse to navigate the setup screen and just start games.

In Stadia for Android 2.26, there are no changes to Stadia’s UI on Android TV. It’s still a shoehorned version of the phone UI that really isn’t great for a non-touchscreen. What it does change, though, is how controllers work. With this update, Stadia for Android TV can accept controller input outside of gameplay.

Instead of breaking out a mouse to scroll down to the game you want to play and press the start button, you can do so with your controller. It’s a bit of pain to get to some UI elements, but the orange selector works well enough to where you can access every menu and setting within the Stadia app using just a joystick or D-pad. This may seem minor, but it was an important roadblock for Stadia to get around to make its Android TV experience worthwhile.

Unfortunately, you’ll still need a mouse to get the Stadia app set up in the first place with Android TV, as the account setup still won’t work with a controller. Hopefully, Google will continue to smooth over these parts of the UI over the coming weeks.