I'm trying to qualify my game for the Google play Level Up Program, specifically the Vulkan specification: https://developer.android.com/games/guidelines#vulkan

I chose to enable ANGLE for my game instead of upgrading to URP (which take a lot of efforts), using the manifest flag from the Android Vulkan/ANGLE docs (https://developer.android.com/games/develop/vulkan/overview):

"In Android 17 and higher, developers can add a metadata flag in the application's manifest to request ANGLE as the GLES driver."

<application android:appCategory="game">
    <meta-data android:name="com.android.graphics.driver.prefer_angle" android:value="true" />
</application>

The docs say it's only a "prefer" hint, but on my test device the hint doesn't seem to be read at all.

Environment:
- Pixel 10a (stallion), Mali-G715, Android 17
- App built with Unity 2022.3 (OpenGL ES 3 only, no Vulkan), targetSdkVersion 36, minSdkVersion 24

- App install with adb install

At launch, logcat shows the default driver being chosen, not ANGLE:

V GraphicsEnvironment: Currently set values for:
V GraphicsEnvironment:   angle_gl_driver_selection_pkgs=[com.android.angle, com.google.android.apps.tachyon]
V GraphicsEnvironment:   angle_gl_driver_selection_values=[angle, native]
V GraphicsEnvironment: <my.package> is not listed in per-application setting
V GraphicsEnvironment: No special selections for ANGLE, returning default driver choice

Forcing ANGLE for my game through Developer options -> ANGLE Preferences works

What I've checked:
- The Developer options ANGLE Preferences entry for the app is default. I understand that's expected, since the manifest flag isn't supposed to write to that setting.

- On a Samsung Galaxy S25 FE (Xclipse 940, Android 17) the app does run on ANGLE. That device also logs returning default driver choice, though, so I think ANGLE is simply Samsung's default GLES driver for Xclipse there, not a result of the flag.

Questions

1. Is com.android.graphics.driver.prefer_angle actually active on current Android 17 builds, or is it gated somehow
2. Does it require anything else, such as installation from Google Play instead of a debug build