Valve Steam Controller review: A gamepad in search of a console

Don’t correction nan Steam Controller for a PC controller. Even though its main usability is to play PC games, Valve’s caller gamepad communicates pinch Steam, and only Steam. This is not a wide controller for your PC, Android aliases iOS devices, and it’s surely not compatible pinch immoderate console connected nan marketplace today, unless you count nan handheld Steam Deck. In bid to play a crippled pinch nan Steam Controller, you person to footwear it up done Steam. (More connected this later).

Valve’s extremity end for nan Steam Controller is compatibility pinch nan Steam Machine, a console that doesn’t yet person a nationalist merchandise day aliases value point. The Steam Machine will support 4K gaming astatine 60 fps pinch FSR, it’ll travel pinch 512GB aliases 2TB of SSD storage, and it’ll activity pinch nan Steam Frame VR headset, arsenic will nan Controller. The caller Steam Machine was expected to driblet early this year, fulfilling a long-promised dream of PC gaming by moving your full Steam room to nan sofa successful a compact but powerful box. Due to nan representation shortages plaguing nan tech industry, nan Machine and Frame aren't present yet, truthful nan Steam Controller is nan first measurement successful Valve’s hardware takeover of surviving room territory. It’s owed to travel retired connected May 4, priced astatine $99.

The Steam Controller represents astir 13 years of R&D, from its first iteration announced successful 2013 to nan debut of nan Steam Deck successful 2022, and nan refinement play intelligibly paid off.

The Steam Controller is simply a tidy chonker of a gamepad pinch a broad, Duke-like look holding 2 quadrate trackpads beneath nan modular analog sticks and look buttons. Despite its other girth, nan Steam Controller feels light, slim and balanced, moreover successful my smaller-than-average hands. The grips are slender and person 4 information rear buttons, 2 per side, that are ace satisfying to click moreover erstwhile they don’t do thing in-game. The bumpers, triggers, D-pad and look buttons are shiny achromatic plastic, and each of nan controller’s edges are rounded, allowing for a soft glide betwixt nan bumpers and triggers especially. The trackpads don’t get successful nan measurement erstwhile you don’t request them, but in-use, they’re incredibly delicate and benignant of mesmerizing. They look and consciousness conscionable for illustration nan trackpads connected nan Steam Deck, pursuing nan trails of your thumbs pinch miniature popping bubbles.

The Steam Controller uses passageway magnetoresistance (TMR) joysticks, which are a leveled-up type of Hall effect sticks, offering eventual precision and semipermanent stableness pinch nary chance of drift. After a fewer days of usage crossed a scope of crippled genres, including competitory first-person shooters, they’ve proven to beryllium reliable and accurate. In position of instrumentality precision and feel, I find nan Steam Controller is comparable to nan Razer Wolverine V3 Pro, my PC gamepad of choice. I different overmuch for illustration nan swappability, rubberized microswitches and crisp clickiness of Razer’s gamepad — but nan Wolverine besides costs astir $100 much and doesn’t travel pinch trackpad capabilities, truthful we’ll telephone it a wash.

One of nan neatest aspects of nan Steam Controller is its charging and relationship puck, which plugs into your PC aliases Steam Deck done a USB cablegram and enables unchangeable wireless play. The puck snaps onto nan belly of nan controller for charging, and erstwhile you hover nan gamepad’s relationship constituent complete it, it jumps up and latches connected for illustration a tiny small sucker fish. I don’t cognize if this behaviour is an intentional trading point, but it surely is for me. The Steam Controller besides connects to devices via Bluetooth aliases pinch a cable, and successful each configurations it’s performed without rumor for me. Of course, Bluetooth mode has nan highest latency, truthful that’s chiefly for phones and Steam Link play. The puck tin support 2 Steam Controllers astatine once. Swapping betwixt Puck and Bluetooth mode is simply a elemental matter of holding nan correct bumper and A aliases B, respectively, erstwhile you move nan controller on.

Pressing nan powerfulness fastener pinch nan Steam logo wakes up nan gamepad, and pressing it doubly erstwhile you’re connected to a PC launches Steam successful Big Picture mode. The Steam Controller feels for illustration a earthy hold of Valve’s storefront, and pinch its matte achromatic decorativeness and bubbled edges, it’ll beryllium acquainted to anyone who’s fallen successful emotion pinch a Steam Deck these past fewer years.

I tested retired nan controller connected my PC pinch Steam games and non-Steam games (added to my Steam room first, of people — seriously, much connected that later), and successful my surviving room pinch my Steam Deck acting arsenic a makeshift, low-powered Steam Machine. On PC I played The Seance of Blake Manor, Creature Kitchen and Overwatch, and connected Steam Deck I played Blake Manor, Demonschool and Balatro. Whether connected pinch Bluetooth, nan puck aliases USB, nan Steam Controller provided seamless play and nary noticeable latency. The region from my sofa to nan puck nestled down my Steam Deck is astir 8 feet, and I didn’t consciousness a framework driblet while cosplaying arsenic a Steam Machine owner. I besides ne'er ran into artillery issues, but that’s not shocking considering Valve’s declare that nan gamepad has much than 35 hours connected a azygous charge. In my testing, nan artillery hardly registered a driblet aft aggregate hours of playtime, and I was happy to threat connected nan charging puck whenever I wanted to group nan controller down.

Valve notes nan artillery life whitethorn beryllium little if playing pinch nan Steam Frame. The Steam Controller has infrared LEDs for tracking, which will evidently drain nan artillery a small faster. Some VR games whitethorn person you waving your controller, arsenic location are gyroscopic sensors successful location arsenic well. As nan Steam Frame isn’t out, I wasn’t capable to trial immoderate of nan controller’s much absorbing features.

Even against players utilizing a keyboard and rodent successful competitory Overwatch matches, I won games and earned awards, passing my individual eventual trial of a controller’s capabilities. When it comes to Overwatch, I’m mostly comparing nan Steam Controller to Sony’s DualSense, and it feels amazingly similar. I bask nan Steam Controller’s soft descent betwixt nan bumpers and triggers, though its haptic feedback is much subtle than nan DualSense’s, lacking successful nan analog sticks particularly. Much for illustration pinch nan Steam Deck, I haven’t recovered a accordant usage lawsuit for nan trackpads connected nan Steam Controller, but I admit their inclusion, nan accessibility factor, and nan truth that they aren’t different intrusive. Now, conscionable adhd a Playdate crank and I’m really sold.

The Steam Controller is simply a clear and unmistakable awesome that Valve is joining nan console wars, and possibly by diligent and diligent design, it’s appearing astatine a susceptible time. Xbox is fumbling nan existent procreation and attempting to redefine its place successful nan console marketplace amid a significant activity shakeup, while Sony and Nintendo are carrying connected pinch modular hardware upgrade cycles successful a scenery that’s based less connected level exclusivity each day. Right now there’s room for a robust PC-based storefront to liking its declare connected sofa gaming, and voila, here’s Valve pinch nan Steam Machine and Steam Controller.

Similarly to nan measurement Valve utilized Half-Life 2 to get group to download Steam successful 2004, nan Steam Controller pushes players to afloat consolidate their PC libraries successful its ain ecosystem. You’ll person to adhd games pinch their ain launchers for illustration Overwatch, Valorant, Minecraft and Fortnite to your Steam room earlier you tin play them utilizing Valve’s controller. This is simply a mini inconvenience, since it takes conscionable a fewer clicks to adhd a non-Steam crippled to your profile.

(Welcome to later). However, I don’t bask doing it. As I was browsing done files to adhd Overwatch to my Steam library, I couldn’t thief reasoning that it would person been beautiful easy for Valve to adhd a move that would fto nan Steam Controller pass pinch immoderate PC game. Maybe it's a touch of oppositional defiant disorder, but I despise being coerced into behaviors that are designed to service a corporation’s marketplace power complete my ain workflow, particularly successful my individual spaces.

Now much than ever, I worth my expertise to take — which businesses I activity with, wherever I shop my software, really I play — and nan Steam launcher request is different mini description of Valve’s unthinkable powerfulness successful nan PC games industry. It’s excessively easy to say, most of my games are already connected Steam, nary large deal, and usage nan Controller arsenic an excuse to consolidate them each connected Valve’s launcher. Suddenly, Steam is wherever you statesman and extremity each gaming session, alternatively than conscionable most. Obviously and particularly pinch nan coming rollout of nan Steam Machine, this is nan reality that Valve wants: a rich | manufacture utterly reliant connected its level of DRM, shitty gross splits and random opaque censorship. It’s nan business that Microsoft, Apple aliases Epic besides want for themselves, but nan main quality is that this early is really successful scope for Valve, and nan Steam Controller is simply a mini portion of nan plan. If consenting and unforced support of a monopoly makes you bristle arsenic well, consciousness free to instrumentality pinch 8BitDo.

Truly though, I get it. The Steam Controller doesn’t travel pinch a PC move because it’s not a PC controller. It’s for controlling Steam, a work that’s go synonymous pinch PC and handheld gaming, and is now creeping onto nan living-room scene. The Steam Controller is designed to travel you everyplace Steam is, for each your gaming needs crossed each surface everlastingly and ever — and location is thing soothing astir that thought successful a Brave New World Soma benignant of way. A PC controller? That’s acold excessively limited, from Valve’s perspective.

Encroaching firm dystopia aside, nan Steam Controller is simply a sturdy and sleek gamepad that stands up to nan competition. It’s for Valve diehards, trackpad fanatics and anyone whose main gaming hub is Steam. Which, to beryllium clear, is simply a monolithic marketplace that’s only poised to grow.