Controller Support Broken After Updating to New WebView2 Exporter

Hi,

I have a problem: I updated my games on Steam using the latest Construct 3 with the updated WebView2 exporter, but now it seems that only the Xbox Series controller works. Switch controllers, DirectInput pads, and Xbox 360 controllers no longer work… I’m pretty sure they used to work before. Is this a temporary issue? Are there any solutions for this?

Okay, in case this helps someone: on Steam, if you use WebView2, never enable the ‘Steam Export’ option when creating the build, no controller except Xbox controllers will work. It probably conflicts with the Overlay. But since the Overlay is only needed for screenshots, it’s something you can sacrifice.

I got a negative review and several critical feedback reports because of this, so I strongly suggest adding a VERY LARGE AND CLEAR warning for anyone deciding to use Steam Export during the build process.

Also, I suspect that many of the unusual chargebacks in the last few days were caused by this as well… really frustrating, and I don’t understand why such an option exists if it can compromise months of work.

Anyway, those are my two cents.

Yeah, I’ve noticed similar issues after the newer WebView2 updates too. Xbox Series controllers still work fine, but older XInput/DirectInput devices and Switch pads can get flaky now depending on how Windows or Steam exposes them. Usually enabling Steam Input helps, and sometimes tools like x360ce or DS4Windows can make the controllers appear as standard XInput devices again. I don’t think Construct intentionally removed support; it feels more like a WebView2/Chromium regression. Definitely worth testing an older Construct build to compare, and if it’s reproducible, reporting it as a bug with the affected controller models listed.

Due to a known outstanding issue with WebView2, we've implemented a workaround for the time being using GameInput to read gamepad input with Steam exports. See the section on gamepad support in the Steamworks plugin documentation - the tl;dr is you need to run the GameInput installer as part of the game install process. Once you do that it should have broad support for all kinds of gamepads, as GameInput is a superset of all prior APIs (XInput, DirectInput, Raw Input, HID and WinRT) and can read gamepads supporting any of those technologies.