Google Stadia lets you stream console-quality games to supported smartphones… but officially you need to use a game controller because the service doesn’t support touchscreen controls.

Unofficially though… there’s TouchStadia.

It overlays a set of on-screen controls that let you play without a physical controller. The experience may not be all that pleasant though.

That’s because you’ll have to place your fingers on the screen, obscuring the action while you play games that weren’t intended for this sort of input. And while on-screen controls are fine for simple games that primarily involve moving a D-pad and hitting a few buttons from time to time, it can get complicated trying to hit the right spot when you need to mash complicated combinations of buttons.

Still, it’s a pretty nifty hack for folks that might want to game on the go when they’ve left their controller at home, or for anyone who may want to try Stadia without investing in new hardware.

In a nutshell, TouchStadia works because Google’s game streaming platform doesn’t only support an Android app. You can also stream games to the Chrome web browser, which allows you to play on just about any PC or on a TV (if you have a Chromecast Ultra).

So the developer created a Chrome extension that overlays touchscreen controls, allowing you to pick up a Windows tablet (or touchscreen laptop) and play without touching a keyboard or controller.

Chrome for Android doesn’t support extensions, so the developer created a JavaScript snippet that can be manually loaded into the browser on your phone or tablet. Just visit a website, copy the text in the box, open Stadia in your mobile browser (using Desktop mode), and then type “javascript:” into the URL and paste the text you copied after it.

This video shows the process:

via r/Stadia and AndroidCentral

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,545 other subscribers

One reply on “TouchStadia lets you play Stadia games on a phone without a controller”

Comments are closed.