The news hit pretty hard when Google announced that it would be shuttering its online game streaming service. Google made a huge push with the platform, offering all kinds of promotions in its early years to get it into people’s hands. And despite news that it wasn’t doing all that well, it still came as a surprise that it wasn’t going to be around anymore.
But the company did right by its subscribers after announcing the closure, offering refunds wherever possible in order to soften the blow. Going beyond hardware and software refunds, Google even managed to open up its controller so that it could be used on other platforms. Now, as we head into the final stretch where users can unlock their Stadia controllers, it appears that a popular platform has now added support in its final moments.
Stadia for Steam
The news comes from The Verge, reporting that the Stadia controller is now fully supported on Steam. While you could previously connect and use Google’s Stadia controller on the platform, it wasn’t a perfect fit and required some button remapping in order to make it work. However, that no longer seems to be the case, with everything working seamlessly with the platform as soon as you connect.
When paired with Steam, the Stadia controller now has most of its buttons mapped, so it works flawlessly with Valve’s OS. As you can imagine, the standard controls and buttons work as is, but the Stadia button will now allow users to head into the quick access menu, while the screenshot button will now take screenshots in the OS. The Google Assistant key can now be programmed with a macro command.
Not a big deal but nice to see
If you have a Stadia controller, it’s nice to see this kind of support come to Steam. But we don’t think many people are going to be using a Stadia controller to play games in 2025. It’s been a couple of years since the platform’s closure, and we think that most people have moved on to new things.
It’s an option if you already have it, but there are many better controllers out there. If you’re someone that has a Stadia controller and has yet to unlock it for use via Bluetooth, we recommend getting that done as soon as possible. Google has extended the deadline for this already, and we don’t think that it will do so after this year.
