Good news! Your Stadia controller won’t become landfill fodder next week

Google has announced it is unlocking the Bluetooth functionality of its Stadia controller, meaning it’ll be usable once the cloud gaming platform completes its shutdown next week.

Google had been vague about whether it would free the gamepad from the clutches of the doomed Stadia platform once January 18 passed.

The company had, quite reasonably, refunded all game and hardware purchases after announcing it was pulling the plug on Stadia. However, gamers had also requested the dormant Bluetooth functionality be enabled, so the controller wouldn’t become a landfill candidate.

That wish will be granted next week, Google says in a community update: “Many of you have expressed the desire to enable Bluetooth on the Stadia controller. We have some good news: next week we’ll be releasing a self-serve tool to enable Bluetooth connections on your Stadia Controller. We’ll share details next week on how to enable this feature.”

Once the update is installed, users will be able to connect to other mobile devices and consoles in order to extend the life of their dormant device.

Within the post, Google announced announced the launch of one final game as a “thank you” for playing. It’s called called Worm Game and is a Snake-like “humble title we used to test many of Stadia’s features before the public launch,” Google says.

Google announced Stadia would shut down in late September 2022, admitting it was cutting losses because the service hadn’t resonated with gamers in the manner initially hoped.

“A few years ago, we also launched a consumer gaming service, Stadia,” wrote Phil Harrison, Stadia’s VP and GM. “And while Stadia’s approach to streaming games for consumers was built on a strong technology foundation, it hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service.”