Image taken from Steam

Around the end of August, which at the time of writing, was no more than two weeks ago, I had finally received the Steam Controller. That anticipation and impatience when I found out it was arriving the very next day was nearly impossible to contain. Fortunately, I had something else to keep me busy, as I had a paper to sit for the very day it was due. And so I got busy, and finished the paper, as any student should.

When I got it from the post office, I sprinted for my room. I would wait no longer! After what felt like 2 years waiting for a local reseller to have it at a decent price, I finally managed to acquire my very own piece of Valve Hardware. With bated breath I opened the box, to the disapproving looks of my roommate who couldn’t understand why someone would be so excited about a controller, and nestled it in my hands for the first time. In my opinion it truly is an evolution of the controller. Those of us who read opinion pieces and such about gaming or were old enough to have tried analogue sticks for the first time may recall how odd they were at that time. But soon enough they became the gold standard for a gaming peripheral. And after four generations of gaming consoles, from the original PlayStation to today’s PlayStation 4 (Let’s bear in mind that the PS Neo is essentially a PS4 with beefier hardware, therefore not truly a next generation console) the dual analogue stick configuration of the DualShock controller has largely remained the same. Perhaps with some new functions added with motion controls and a touchpad, but otherwise you still get the basic ABXY face buttons, arrow buttons, four buttons for your index and middle fingers (assuming that’s the norm), and two analogue sticks. The only variation I’ve seen is with the Xbox layout, which just swaps the positions of the arrow buttons and the right analogue stick.

On the left: Xbox One Controller. On the right: DualShock 4. Very little difference. Image from ThiftyNerd.

The Steam Controller is very different though. Built with the purpose to be the best in backwards compatibility for gaming, enabling you to still play the oldest PC games comfortably with a controller, and with the goal of letting you play mouse heavy strategy games like DOTA or Civilisation from the comfort of your couch, the controller had to be unique in that it still allowed you to use a mouse but still be good enough to play the latest games with modern controller support.

Where the Steam Controller greatly differs is in a variety of areas. For the similarities, it has the ABXY face buttons, a “Start” and “Select” buttons (in quotes for a reason I’ll get back to later) and two bumpers. It’s differences lie in the fact that it only has one analogue stick, where the norm is two, two clickable touchpads, dual stage triggers (the first stage is like a regular pull of a trigger, whereas the second stage is a click at a full press of the trigger) and two additional buttons on the bottom of the controller, to be clicked with your remaining digits. As far as I know only one other controller has this built in, and that’s the Xbox One Elite Controller. But it still doesn’t have the depth of customisation the Steam Controller does.

I configured Y to act as F, which is the button to jack a car on keyboard. As you can see it has mutliple buttons selected. This is so that when I jack a car, it will switch from the “On-Foot” profile to the “Driving” profile. Here you can configure which Action Set it should switch to. The first screen you see when you load a config or make your own. On the top, below the title of the config, are Action Sets. These are separate config layouts which can be switched to with the push of a button.

Click an image for captions explaining the screenshots.

Every single button on the controller can be configured to work either exactly as it should, or to perform a different function. Say you want A to act as X instead, go ahead, configure it that way! Analogue stick as WASD on the keyboard rather than analogue movement? Sure! “Start” and “Select” as the respective buttons for minimap and chat? Go ahead! Every button bar one can be customised to fit your tastes. The only exception is the Steam button in the middle, which is used to bring Steam to the front or launch Big Picture Mode, and with a new update in the Beta version of the client, can be used while pressed with flicks of the analogue stick to control volume, or with the press of the B button to force close an app (a la Alt+F4), or to shut down the controller quickly. These bindings of course can be reconfigured as you wish as well.

Example of a touch menu overlay that quickly jumps from 1-6, and has quicksave/load and screenshot functions as well.

As for the touchpads? Set it up to act as basic arrow keys and you’ll be fine. However, if you configure it for a pop up inventory menu (see image above) to quickly select your weapon of choice. Or perhaps, while you’re soft pressing the right trigger in GTA 5, it changes from a basic arrow key to a scroll wheel (with the feedback you’d expect to boot!) so you can zoom in while scoped. So much to be customised, and I haven’t even mentioned the gyro yet! Set it up as a budget steering wheel in Dirt 3! Use it for precise aim in shooters! Do what you want! And the grips (buttons on the bottom) can be set to sprint and reload. Or quicksave and quickload. The choice is yours!

Steam Controller Gyro set to act as a mouse. When I’m touching the right touchpad, which acts as a regular mouse, therefore moves the camera, movements with the gyro will also move the camera, allowing precise aim with ease.

Is the Steam Controller the next true evolution of the controller? I’d like to think so. Perhaps in its current form it’s not perfect, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. It opens up the possibilities of what can be played from your couch, which means more games to the masses. I doubt Sony and Microsoft would adopt it though, as their userbase tends to be extremely picky with even the smallest of changes, and something like the Steam Controller is a very big change. Perhaps as an optional accessory, it might work. As a PC gamer, where the best exclusive is the array of options at your disposal, from games to peripherals, I’d say that the controller has an interesting future ahead. I honestly can’t wait to see what changes next, but until then, I’ll definitely be holding on to this thing. I consider the older layout clumsy now (sorry, dear old F310, you’ve served me well) and the sheer number of options present with the controller means that it’s quite futureproof for the foreseeable future. I can’t wait to see how the software evolves with the existing software. And who knows? Perhaps in future it would be known as the first step to the new norm.