This year's Android 12 update is shaping up to be Google's biggest release in years, judging by all the cool new features we're finding. Earlier today, XDA Recognized Developer and friend of the site Quinny899 gave us our first look at Android 12's hidden Conversation widget, but that's not the only feature he enabled. Thanks to some reverse engineering, he managed to get Google's hidden Gaming Dashboard feature working. It's currently extremely barebones and only has a floating toolbar with two non-functional buttons, but it's our first look at yet another unreleased Android 12 feature.

As you can see in the screenshot below, two icons are overlaid on top of the screen: A record icon and a controller icon.

According to the code for Gaming Dashboard contained within Android 12's SystemUI, the record button simply starts a screen recording session. That'll be useful when you want to record your screen without interrupting gameplay by pulling down the Quick Settings panel. As for the button with the controller icon, we don't know what it'll do because it doesn't work and there's no obvious functionality tied to it in the code.

The Gaming Dashboard classes are part of the com.google.android.systemui namespace rather than com.android.systemui, which suggests this feature may be Pixel-exclusive. However, many OEMs already have their own Gaming Mode features, and there's nothing about this version that stands out right now. Before the first Developer Preview dropped, we learned that Google is working on a game mode for Android 12. We don't know if this new Gaming Dashboard and the Game Mode we heard of are one and the same, or if the former is simply a feature built on top of the new GameManager service. We'll probably learn more information from subsequent Android 12 Developer Previews, though.