Very simple problem with the game.

I have a XBOX one controller and Windows 7. My controller work fine with every game I've played as a whole and my keyboard works.

But for some reason, no input from my controller work with this game. This absolutely baffles me.

Yes, drivers are up to date ; as I said, been playing GOG games with my controller and everything work fine. No idea why nothing works here.

Did you try anything diagnostic?

Anything diagnostic? I have a feeling there's words missing in your reply.

Try this:
1. start the game
2. remove the usb cable of the xbox controller
3. wait a minute
4. plug in the xbox controller again.
that worked for me.

Did not work. Looked over the Steam forums for people who have similar problems and found a rather absurd solution.

Turn out that the game does not recognize my actual, working XBOX controller driver... but it somehow recognize the controller being emulated.

In short, I have to emulate my own functional, driver-installed and working XBOX controller to get the game to recognize it.

The controller does work now. Though I can't get the rumble function to work. But still, it works. Still find it ridiculous that the game works with an emulated XBOX controller but can't detect the real driver.

It doesn't work in the linux version either, xbox 360 or one.
This game doesn't seem to have great controller support

I can't get the game to recognize my PS4 controller on Ubuntu 18.04. I've tried using Steam's PS4 controller configuration which usually takes care of it, but it won't work for Yooka Laylee.

Same issue here, I know that the OS sees the controller in it's entirety (via jstest) but the game flat out ignores it. Any config files hiding around to mess with mappings?

Oh, I forgot to update this. I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out. Apparently it was a common problem when the game first launched, but for most people it was fixed by later updates. Not for me, and none of the troubleshooting steps worked.

I filed a ticket with their customer service, but I never got a response. 6 business days later, I refunded and left a negative review.