Google’s Stadia cloud gaming platform has been dead for the better part of 3 years now, but the sole piece of hardware, the Stadia Controller, has lived on. Now, as yet another arbitrary cutoff nears, Steam has quietly improved its support for the Stadia Controller.
As noticed by The Verge, Steam has upgraded support for the Stadia Controller behind the scenes. Where Steam previously required that you enabled support for generic controllers, the Stadia Controller now connects and works even with that setting turned off. It’s still referred to as a “Generic Gamepad,” but it has better support now.
Other upgrades include:
- The Google Assistant key is a programmable macro button
- The screenshot key now takes screenshots (at least on SteamOS)
- The Stadia key now works like an Xbox key, opening Steam Big Picture, SteamOS shortcuts, etc
There are still some features that don’t work, such as automatic shut-off when paired to SteamOS (the Steam Deck) or audio through the 3.5mm headphone jack, but it’s clearly come a long way since the original state. Rumble, sadly, also still doesn’t work over Bluetooth, at least in the games we tested. You also still won’t see Stadia Controller icons throughout the UI, not that that’s a surprise at all.
As we noted back in 2023, some Steam games simply didn’t work with the Stadia Controller over Bluetooth. One of those games, Risk of Rain 2, now works like a charm.
This comes in the eleventh hour, though, as the real “death” of the Stadia Controller is nearing. When Google opened up the web-based tool that converts a Stadia Controller into a Bluetooth controller, the company put a deadline on how long it could be used. When that deadline neared, Google extended it by a year through the end of 2024. Then, a year later, it was extended again through the end of 2025.
But, as it stands today, the Stadia Controller conversion tool is set to go offline on December 31, 2025, just a few weeks from today. Google hasn’t confirmed if it will be extended again, and it remains unclear why this tool has a deadline in the first place, but if you still have an unconverted Stadia Controller laying around, it’s time to get it updated!
More from the Stadia Archives:
- Google toyed with the idea of buying out Epic Games back before Stadia launched
- Stadia’s death was due to a ‘self-sustaining cycle’ of lacking games and players, lead says
- This is what the death of Google Stadia actually looked like [Video]
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