I finally found a way to force proper controller assignments in UE 5.5. This is purely Xinput solution so only for Xbox Controllers. You need to take Xinput Plugin from engine and place it in project under Plugins/Runtime/Windows/XinputDevice (or edit in engine if from GitHub).
Next edit the GetPlatformUserAndDevice method as below.
You also need to add “EngineSettings” module to plugin’s build.cs.
This is a temporary fix that will most likely fail to work on consoles and other gamepads. I didn’t test dynamic reassignemnts as well.
/*
* Fix/Hack for Gamepad mapping so it omits assigning the first controller to first player when requested
*/
void XInputInterface::GetPlatformUserAndDevice(int32 InControllerId, EInputDeviceConnectionState InDeviceState, FPlatformUserId& OutPlatformUserId, FInputDeviceId& OutDeviceId)
{
bool bSkipPlayer1 = UGameMapsSettings::GetGameMapsSettings()->GetSkipAssigningGamepadToPlayer1();
if (bIsPrimaryDevice)
{
if (bSkipPlayer1)
{
InControllerId = InControllerId + 1;
}
IPlatformInputDeviceMapper& DeviceMapper = IPlatformInputDeviceMapper::Get();
DeviceMapper.RemapControllerIdToPlatformUserAndDevice(InControllerId, OUT OutPlatformUserId, OUT OutDeviceId);
//Check if this controller was already assigned because it can be in Unknown state for some reason... And we don't want to pass it every time as we're going to be spammed with UI Editor messages
TArray<FInputDeviceId> Devices;
DeviceMapper.GetAllInputDevicesForUser(OutPlatformUserId, Devices);
bool bDeviceIsAdded = Devices.Contains(OutDeviceId);
if (InDeviceState == EInputDeviceConnectionState::Connected || InDeviceState == EInputDeviceConnectionState::Disconnected || !bDeviceIsAdded)
{
DeviceMapper.Internal_MapInputDeviceToUser(OutDeviceId, OutPlatformUserId, InDeviceState);
}
}
else
{
OutDeviceId = FInputDeviceId::CreateFromInternalId(InControllerId);
}
}