Android 17’s new foldable gaming mode may make flippy telephones extra enjoyable

Android 17 is getting a devoted gaming mode for foldables that may put a digital gamepad with contact controls on half of your display screen to theoretically make it simpler to play video games.

With foldable gaming mode, which is ready to launch within the coming months, the digital controller emulates bodily button presses at a system degree and is designed to work “with any game that supports physical controllers,” says Google’s Mishaal Rahman on Reddit. For the precise inputs, the digital controller could have a D-pad; left and proper digital sticks; A, B, X, and Y buttons; L1, L2, L3; R1, R2, and R3; and a begin button. And you’ll be capable of configure the gamepad in a number of methods, comparable to preserving the digital joysticks inline or staggered from one another, scaling the dimensions of the buttons, and toggling haptics on or off.

Turning on the mode “is as simple as unfolding your device, either before or after launching a compatible game,” Rahman says. You can even select to cover the gamepad, and in the event you join a bodily controller, the digital gamepad will flip off by itself.

“Android allows you to play a wide variety of games on the go,” says Rahman. “While touch controls work incredibly well for many titles, certain games are better enjoyed with physical gamepads. The problem is that carrying a Bluetooth controller or a snap-on gamepad with you everywhere isn’t always convenient. We want to bridge that gap, and we’re addressing it with a new feature in the Android 17 platform release that’s specifically tailored for foldable devices.”