Google has offered a ‘sneak peak’ at a new foldable gaming mode coming in Android 17 – and it has got us seriously thinking about adopting a foldable phone as our next handset.
The new mode will split the display of a book-style foldable 50/50, with the game on top and the virtual gamepad on the bottom display. To me, that’s felt like the point of foldable all along and it’s great to see Google getting around to offering it as part of Android.
The news comes from Android’s Community Engagement Manager Mishaal Rahman who took to Reddit to show off the feature – which sounds like it will be great for the Pixel 10 Pro Fold or Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 devices, to name just two.
He says the virtual gamepad will adapt to all games with physical controller support and it includes the usual crop of buttons including a D-pad, thumbsticks, ABXY action buttons, and L-R 1-3 buttons. It’ll also be possible to customise the layouts and the haptic feedback.
Rahman says: “Android allows you to play a wide variety of games on the go. 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.
“Foldable gaming mode addresses this by making full use of your foldable’s screen real estate. When enabled, foldable gaming mode splits your screen 50/50. You get a full, unobstructed game view on the top half of your screen and a dedicated virtual gamepad on the bottom half. Enabling it is as simple as unfolding your device, either before or after launching a compatible game.”
That big news might be that developers won’t have to do anything to ensure the feature is supported. Rahman added in a reply to question from a Redditor: “If a game supports physical gamepads and has an adaptive UI, then foldable gaming mode should work with it with no additional effort from the developer.”
Pixel Phones already have a stable version of Android 17 available, but this feature is rolling out in the coming months, Rahman says.
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