// THE VERGE — MOBILE & WEB
Android 17’s new foldable gaming mode could make flippy phones more fun
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To make it easier to play games, one side of the screen will show a virtual gamepad with touch controls.
To make it easier to play games, one side of the screen will show a virtual gamepad with touch controls.
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Android 17 is getting a dedicated gaming mode for foldables that will put a virtual gamepad with touch controls on half of your screen to theoretically make it easier to play games.
With foldable gaming mode, which is set to launch in the coming months, the virtual controller emulates physical button presses at a system level and is designed to work “with any game that supports physical controllers,” says Google’s Mishaal Rahman on Reddit. For the actual inputs, the virtual controller will have a D-pad; left and right virtual sticks; A, B, X, and Y buttons; L1, L2, L3; R1, R2, and R3; and a start button. And you’ll be able to configure the gamepad in several ways, such as keeping the virtual joysticks inline or staggered from each other, scaling the size 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 also choose to hide the gamepad, and if you connect a physical controller, the virtual gamepad will turn off on its own.