One in all the handiest substances of the Steam Deck is its many diversified controls, and the finest technique to customize them to will let you lift out no topic you desire with each one amongst your games. Now, Valve is bringing that same level of flexibility into a brand original gamepad. I unbiased now not too long within the past bought to set up out it at Valve’s headquarters, and it feels love the controller I’ve consistently wished.
As of late, Valve supplied the second-generation Steam Controller. It’s a Bluetooth controller that works with any instrument that runs Steam, alongside with Valve’s original Steam Machine PC and Steam Physique VR headset, and springs with a puck that serves as a low-latency wi-fi connector and doubles as a charging situation. This would possibly well launch in early 2026 for a keep that’s but to be supplied, though Valve is aiming to create the price competitive with other controllers with “improved inputs,” per hardware engineer Steve Cardinali.
That is Valve’s second crack at building a Steam Controller. The first-generation model had two enormous circular trackpads, handiest one joystick, and came in an bizarre bulbous shape. It space out to present you mouse-grade pointing accuracy and a keyboard price of customizable capabilities within the fingers of your fingers. Valve at closing discontinued the distinctive model, but it no doubt by no formulation in actuality died; the firm and devotees kept its configuration system alive as Steam Input, a system that now permits you to configure your PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo controllers the same formulation.
Controller consume has long past up dramatically on Steam, with a predominant chunk of of us utilizing Steam Input. As an illustration, some have modified their Steam Deck controls to bind Hole Knight: Silksong’s downward attack, key in battle and to come by the arena, onto a single button. Steam Deck investors every at times gaze that decades-used mouse-and-keyboard games are at once playable because some diehard Steam Controller fanatic constructed a community controller profile years within the past.
Valve’s second-generation Steam Controller is important nearer to a worn gamepad than the used version. Believe someone took a Steam Deck, lopped off the hide, and smashed the two ends collectively, and likewise you’ve bought the smartly-liked belief: It has commonplace gamepad grips, an improved D-pad, four vital face buttons, two triggers, two bumpers, four abet buttons, and even two Steam Deck-love touchpads — now canted and rotated roughly 15 levels inward to compensate for the inequity in grip between gamepads and handhelds. I by no formulation loved the kind the used Steam Controller sat in my fingers, but this original one felt intuitive factual away.
With the original controller, Valve is also the predominant to effect magnetic, lag in conjunction with the waft-resistant sticks into a predominant-birthday party pad — beating Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo to the punch — after previously announcing that they weren’t that predominant. Valve partnered with an unnamed provider for the custom create, which makes consume of TMR joysticks, though per Cardinali, the create isn’t unfamiliar.
The Steam Controller has two stamp-original capacitive sensors inside of every grip to advise must you’re entirely grasping it or have let lag in conjunction with some fingers. Valve calls this virtual button “Grip Sense,” and likewise you would possibly perchance moreover contrivance the relaxation to it, however the feature used to be on the muse instructed by a Valve employee who wished a formulation to set off gyro aiming without transferring their thumbs. The grips even have two “excessive output LRA haptic motors,” though I wasn’t in a position to test how significantly better they would perchance well create the controller feel in prepare.
That is a estimable controller. I was vaguely reminded of the OG Xbox “Duke” gamepad. But I loved that controller, and within the jiffy I purchased to play with the original Steam Controller a couple weeks within the past, it felt in actuality cosy. (My colleague Sean says his “fingertips factual melt into its circular abet buttons.”)
The stick tops are somewhat thinner than on the Deck, though the sticks have the same grippy surfaces. The face buttons are less rattle-y, and charging the total ingredient is kind of slick — you factual bring the controller over the head of the integrated puck and that puck will magnetically snap into space.
The puck gives you a proprietary low-latency connection for as much as four controllers real now, and Valve says you would possibly perchance moreover consume all four at as much as 5 meters away with out a dropouts. Valve’s engineers advise us they’ve tried as much as sixteen controllers at a time, but that’s now not formally supported.
Valve’s original Steam Machine has a constructed-in antenna particularly to attach to the Steam Controller, so you would possibly perchance moreover procure the puck next to your sofa factual for charging. Every controller gets an estimated 35 hours of battery life from an internal lithium pack.
We answered your burning questions about Valve’s original hardware.
We hosted a subscriber-unfamiliar AMA about the Steam Machine, Steam Physique, and Steam Controller, and likewise you would possibly perchance moreover verify out our responses right here.
While this controller isn’t powered by AA batteries love the older Steam Controller, Valve has made the lithium pack on this more contemporary model particular person-replaceable: It pops out love an used cell phone battery after you originate the gamepad. You are going to fling a USB-C cable into the Steam Controller on to fee and play wired, too.
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Cardinali had me play Balatro with three diverse regulate schemes to blow their very possess horns what’s that you just’ll doubtless be moreover mediate of with the controller. For one blind, I used worn gamepad controls, and playing it with the Steam Controller felt akin to what I’m used to with my Switch Pro Controller (one other accepted gamepad of mine). For the following blind, I used the factual touchpad as a mouse and the left touchpad because the mouse “buttons,” with the left facet of the left pad as left-click and the factual facet as factual-click. I wouldn’t screech it used to be faster, but it no doubt paralleled a mouse experience. For the following blind, I activated gyro within the grips to pass a mouse. All once more, now not necessarily a faster formulation to play, but I would possibly well stare why some of us would possibly well love it.
Whenever you, love me, wish every controller supplied the same level of flexibility to your games because the Steam Deck, I mediate this original Steam Controller goes to be a straightforward recommendation.