Bridging the gap between the PC and console – and by extension, between the mouse and the controller – is no easy task. There’s a reason it’s never been done; a reason that despite all these years and all these innovations nobody has come up with a suitable control scheme that allows the best of both worlds. As Valve’s own marketing video muses, “For too long, players have had to choose between the precision of a mouse and the familiarity of a controller.”
Note: I’ve updated this article a bit based on some more hours with the Steam Controller. Major changes are noted, others are just in there.
The Steam Controller aims to change that, and honestly it comes pretty close. So close, in fact, it’s probably a fair bet that with a few firmware updates, a little user familiarity, and (possibly) a second hardware generation, players will no longer have to choose between the precision of a mouse and the familiarity of a controller. For now, the Steam Controller is almost what it set out to be.
On one hand, that almost is miniscule – this is Valve at its very finest, a near-museum quality piece of engineering tied to software so customizable you might need Wikipedia to understand some of the stuff you can do with it.
On the other hand the almost is pretty significant, because the Steam Controller doesn’t quite do the job of a controller and doesn’t quite do the job of a mouse. But hot damn, is it close. You won’t feel that way at first, though.
UPDATE: Objectively, though, the Steam Controller doesn’t do what it’s intended to do, and its flaws are not limited to software. Ergonomically, some mistakes were made — most notably the size of the controller and the placement of the face buttons. Functionally, the lack of stuff we often consider whizbang special effects (like rumble) actually do make a difference in many games. You try picking a lock in Thief without it.
Size Doesn’t Matter
Ergonomics are everything, so I’ll start with some minutia of size and weight and hand-feel.
Cat provided for scale. Click to enlarge. (the whole photo, not just the cat. Same goes for the rest)
Speaking personally — you can only speak personally and subjectively about controllers — I slightly prefer the PS3/4 controller over the 360/bone controller. I prefer the placement of the analog thumbsticks on the latter, but with extended use I tend to develop a sharp pain in the base of my left index finger.
So my initial concern with the Steam Controller, given its size, is that I’ll have the same problem with it. As it turns out I have a different problem, but one still related to size and layout.
UPDATE: surprisingly, the decision to put the face buttons between the two haptic pads (more on these in a minute) doesn’t feel awkward or even different. Despite years of moving your thumb right to hit a face button, you’ll move it left without even realizing something’s changed. But while this seemingly major layout change doesn’t impact the Steam Controller overall, the face button placement is physically too far from the right thumb due to the controller’s size. The difference in thumb “reach” is not a dealbreaker, but it’s close.
Let’s look at some other angles.
It’s a bit larger than a 360 controller; large enough that the face buttons are difficult to reach for people with non-paw hands.
However, if you look at the controllers from a front-on perspective you begin to understand why most people’s first reaction is likely to be “this thing is too big:”
The bulbous ends — versus the 360’s tapering ones — create a sense that the Steam Controller is bigger than it actually is.
And finally, comparing all three:
I’m not trying to be avant-garde, my coffee table is that color. Beyond that, take note of the face button placement on the Steam Controller. This should feel like a huge change; it doesn’t. Instead, the fact that you can’t easily reach said face buttons… that’s a bit of a thing.
It may have simply been an engineering necessity, to fit some of the other technology in there. The Steam Controller also weighs a few ounces more than its counterparts, but not to the degree that it’ll bother you. Generally speaking construction is beautiful, solid, and well-built.
But… when my thumb goes for X, it hits Y. Or B. It’s a conscious stretch, especially noticeable in games like Wild Hunt, where the two attack types are mapped to X and Y.
We are Officially Running Out of Places to Put Buttons
The obvious layout differences look more jarring than they are when you hold the Controller in your hand, but that’s not to say you’ll take to it readily. Any controller must fulfill some requirements if it’s to have a prayer of being viewed as a PS/bone alternative: you gotta have triggers, you gotta have bumpers, you gotta have four face buttons and a Whatever The Big Middle Button That Powers Up The Console is called and so on. And you gotta put them in places that seem familiar.
Steam Controller has all that, more or less where you expect such items to be.
The real points of interest are the pair of owl-eye pads on the right and left of the Controller’s face. This is where the “precision of a mouse” thing comes into play, and fails to fully materialize, though in a way that’s doing this controller a disservice. The owl-eyes are haptically-responsive, micron-sensitive surfaces you control with the pads of your thumbs. Which is close to the precision of a mouse, but not as close as an analog thumbstick.
UPDATE: as this device is banking heavily on being a bridge between the precision of a mouse and the familiarity of a controller, it has a Get Out of Jail Free card here. It isn’t necessarily claiming to be a replacement for anything. In the final analysis there are some things it does that controllers don’t readily do, and some things controllers do that it tries and fails — in some cases spectacularly — to emulate.
It adds some nifty features: two rocker buttons on the bottom, where your middle, ring, and pinky fingers rest normally. Obvious places for additional buttons, really; I’m surprised it hasn’t been a standard before now. The triggers, meanwhile, are actually four buttons, not two: each has a traditional analog pull, but at the end of that both offer a secondary digital click. Thanks to the controller’s innate flexibility in mapping, that opens up a number of potential customization opportunities.
Any button’s action can also change the behavior of other buttons on the fly: say you want to reduce camera sensitivity when you’re aiming — like the sniper mode on gaming mice. It’s easily accomplished: just set the left trigger’s digital click to cut the sensitivity on the right haptic pad. The camera behaves normally when you aim normally, but squeeze the left trigger a little harder and suddenly you have a whole different precision window.
Seriously
Like everything on the Steam Controller, though, the haptic pads are not “just” haptic pads. They are anything you want them to be.
Like, ANYTHING.
This is just the amuse-bouche of customization, trust me.
Every game in Steam now has a “Configure Controller” option, from which you can map whatever the hell you want to map, to any button, analog or digital. Map Y to A. Map Start to 6. Set the haptic pads to emulate thumbsticks, or a D-Pad, or a mouse, or just a regular button. Or nothing, I suppose. You can set the left trigger to CTRL+ALT+Space+T for all Steam Controller cares. It’s way beyond the level of mapping we expect in most PC games and unprecedented for a controller. The level of granularity in customization is amazing; a mixed blessing since you could easily spend an hour or more fine-tuning controls for a single game.
Of course, if you like the result, you can just use the same profile for any other game. Your configurations are saved on a game-by-game basis. If you don’t feel like doing a ton of custom sensitivity tweaking, use one of the “recommended” layouts or browse and download settings from the community, which has already built up an impressive library of options for more popular games.
ANYTHING.
Uh-huh, you can map the right bumper to the left bumper and the left bumper to the right bumper. I did exactly that in Witcher: Wild Hunt and it made a huge difference, though of course the game didn’t know that left and right had reversed. Steam warns you about that, though.
Really, I MEAN ANYTHING.
The “Style of Input” pulldown includes options for D-Pad, Mouse, Thumbstick/Camera and Thumbstick/Movement.
So like you’re thinking there’s no right thumbstick, yeah? You just tell the right haptic pad to emulate one and you’re… you’re pretty much good to go. But if you do a side-by-side comparison of precision, the thumbstick will win, I guarantee it. No matter how much time you spend tweaking.
When people play games, they use all kinds of words and phrases to describe this and that. “The controls are a bit floaty.” “The jump feels tight.” “Shooting is thumpy.” That’s how our brains translate the inputs we’re getting from our eyes and hands; really it’s a matter of latency (time between action and reaction) and polling rate (number of times per second the controller checks to see if you’ve done something).
It’s fractions of milliseconds. Game to game, move to move, the ideal latency and polling might vary. You can’t just say “low latency and high polling” and be done with it. If your latency is too low it’ll feel like the game jumped your gun. If the polling’s too high, you won’t be able to pop-pop-pop the way you like because you’ll be spraying bullets like a bullet-hose.
The customization isn’t limited to mapping, either. You can set all kinds of things, including the haptic response — which feels like a sort of squeaky rubber against the pad of your thumb and is what the Steam Controller has in place of rumble… which, I must say, is missed. But there’s only so much you can cram into one of these things, right?
Stop Showing Us Menus, Fool. Does it Work?
It’s complicated.
I will say, from the Department of Obvious, that the more time you spend with the Steam Controller, the more comfortable you’re going to get and the less off-putting some of its peculiarities will be. Until then, expect some variance in your mileage.
I will also say that I’ve spent probably fifteen hours with this thing and I’ve set it aside in frustration more than once.
I Say Mechro, You Say Mancer
Borderlands 2 was the first thing I tried, because I played it with a 360 controller, I’m very comfortable with it, and it’s a good example of a shooter you can play equally well with controller or mouse. I wanted to capture some video so as to show you a side-by-side comparison, but technical foibles exceeded my capacity for irritation and I gave up on that. Besides, the differences might not be evident to a spectator. They’re evident to the player, though.
It felt… swingy. Not precisely over-sensitive, just over-exuberant. Like because the pad is flat, I was compensating on camera movement too much, or something. Into the settings we go.
It took about an hour of back-and-forth between the game and the settings to create an ideal custom Steam Controller setup for Borderlands 2 — a game I’ve finished and will probably never play again — and it still wasn’t as good as a 360 controller. That’s not meant as a damning statement, though. Not even close. It’s not as good as a 360 controller, but it’s perfectly playable and sufficiently precise. You’d get used to it.
Give a noob a 360 controller and a FPS and they’ll inevitably flail around and wind up looking at the floor; this was, to a lesser extent, my early experience in Borderlands 2 and pretty much everything else I tried. Over time it got more and more natural, but there’s going to be a re-learning curve for most people.
I keep going back and forth on my verdict: sometimes I was frustrated enough by the different-ness to set aside the Steam Controller altogether and switch back to my familiar corded 360 controller. Other times the device’s customizability and obvious effort at doing what it’s supposed to was more than enough to make me give it the patience it deserves. The best advice I can give is to stick with it.
By this point I feel like the Steam Controller and I will get along okay, but prepare for disappointment if you’re hoping this device will completely supplant your others. It’s close — in fact it’s probably as close as anything can possibly come — but there’s a good chance that won’t work out for you. Controller configurations are personal, so I can’t give the Steam Controller a flat-out Yea or Nay verdict.
What I can do is give it some stream-of-consciousness bullets.
- It works as advertised
- It includes technology that frankly should cost a hell of a lot more than $49.99
- It’s too big
- The level of available customization is unprecedented, beyond even what you see in mouse/keyboard games
- The haptic response feels pleasantly creaky against my thumbs
- It doesn’t bridge the gap between mouse and controller and probably never will, at least not perfectly
- Don’t even try to hot-plug it with another USB controller or you’ll hear Steam howling from the other room
Frankly I’ve seen some people exhibit shocking precision with thumbsticks (I’m not one of them) so it may be unfair to suggest that the controller is an inherently “clumsier” device. But even setting aside the matter of precision, pointer-driven games like Prison Architect absolutely positively play better with a mouse and still do when you add Steam Controller to the equation. Flexible games like Borderlands 2 absolutely positively play better with a mouse or a traditional controller, but in those instances, it’s a much closer shave.
Looking at this article I feel like it’s only somewhat coherent, so I reserve the right to do a second take on Steam Controller impressions in the future. This device is wildly innovative, the kind of thing only Valve could come up with, and the kind of thing that really does take two years to develop. That doesn’t mean it’s good or bad; it’s just how it is. Ultimately the Steam Controller isn’t a Steam Link slam dunk, but it’s far, far from a “don’t bother.” It’s a cautious endorsement.
You’re learning to walk again, but stick with it long enough and you’ll probably walk better in the long run.
Coo at Steerpike’s cat at Steerpike@Tap-Repeatedy.com.
Honestly, my Steam controller can’t arrive soon enough.
I wish it were easier to love, but that’s probably wishing for too much. Steam Link is straight up, out of the park, miles better than your wildest expectations. Steam Controller isn’t. Which really shouldn’t be that surprising, since the former is a pipe between a PC and a television, while the latter is a massive re-imagining of human/computer interface.
Yeah, that makes sense. It feels like a big deal.
I admit that a free copy of Rocket League was what tipped me over into pre-ordering, but I’m also genuinely interested in seeing what they’ve come up with. There are enough innovations in the controller that I think it’s really suck-it-and-see, which I think is reflected by the divergent opinions I’m reading!
Kitty!
Matt, most of your sentiments echo my own. One caveat tho, gyro control! This for me is where the real potential for the controller in relation to FPS and TPS games lies. I got so frustrated and disappointed trying to make the controller do what my 360 pad does so readily.
I have created a motion config (private as its not complete) for CS:Go and I have been running around after bots and being amazed at how better and more natural my aiming is compared to thumbsticks.
If you have Dishonored, I have a gyro enabled config uploaded you could try that works superbly, its called “Pinkys Amazing Gyro Controls” or some such if you would like to try it.
The gyro can be prone to drift, valve know about it and are working on it.
The controller is going to take a lot of learning but the potential, omg such potential! My feelings on the controller have been very up and down, from abject disappointment to slack jawed amazement then back to disappointment.
I can see what valve are trying to do here, and at times I can feel it and it really excites me!
Hey Mark, thanks for your detailed comments.
You make a good point about the gyro control that I should have mentioned… is it working across the board for everyone? I’ve seen it marked in the Controller Settings but it’s never, ah, done anything gyro-like. In fact I assumed it was an unfinished feature we’d see in a later update.
If I can get it working on my end, I’ll try your scheme for Dishonored. That game is a great choice to put the controller through its motions, good call.
Another great write-up and glad you updated it too.
I’ll second Mark. I’ve been playing Splatoon a lot since release and it’s the first console shooter where I actually feel empowered with a pad. Why? The motion control aiming. It’s a revelation. So much so that I was hoping that more console shooters would take note but… I doubt it. Then I discovered that the Steam Controller features a gyro that can be configured and used for pretty much any game. That’s amazing. As far back as I can remember, I’ve always considered thumbsticks simply unfit for purpose when it comes to aiming, which makes up a vast chunk of gaming.
In fact, I finished Enslaved tonight and got incredibly frustrated with some twitchy aiming sections at the end that cost me a retry or two. Horse shit. And only a couple of weeks ago I finished Stranger’s Wrath which I played for a good 10 hours on pad before realising that I could use mouse and keyboard. Straight away it felt better and I was landing way more of my shots, consequently using less ammo. Stranger’s Wrath is a tough game so this made a huge difference. Without that degree of precision I would expect the later parts of the game to be downright infuriating!
Anyway, I’ve been gobbling up all sorts of information about the Steam Controller since it was released and I’ve been really impressed with what I’ve seen and heard so far, at least from the Youtubers who aren’t doing unboxings and floundering first fumbles. I applaud Valve for coming up with what seems like a genuinely versatile, forwarding thinking and powerful bit of kit. Those rear paddles I can see feeling really nice on racing games too for changing gears. Dirt Rally, I’m looking at you.
Here’s a few great gyro videos I’ve seen on my travels:
Steam Controller vs. mouse and keyboard on CS:GO (incredible): https://youtu.be/lSeRwYotCQ0
Quake (incredible): https://youtu.be/8Gahrxo3cw8
Gyro config MGSV demo: https://youtu.be/B43ibnztDLc
Resident Evil 2 Revelations: https://youtu.be/2VcidBFh3FY
For most other types of games I’ve been watching videos by a chap called Woodsie: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheDarkAlly/videos Very insightful.
…aaaaand I just pre-ordered one. I figured I should vote with my money on this bold thing.
Hey Matt you are welcome. Like Gregg B above, I am a huge fan of the gyro controls in Splatoon. I also set Half Life 2 up in the same way today and it was awesome. Well, for about 5 mins my crosshair was going all over the place and I couldnt figure out why. I was using Steam Link and playing in the living room, turns out my 4 year old daughter was in the kitchen, saw half life 2 running on the host pc and was moving the mouse around randomly lol. She had me flumoxed and frustrated for nearly 10 mins, I thought my controller was broken 🙂
How about a game like X-COM (I’m too lazy to look if you have that in your library)? I thought the controller interface for that game was very well done, but I’d be curious to see what it feels like with this one.
I’m also disappointed by the lack of rumble. Remember when Sony screwed up (one of their many PS3-era screw-ups) and left out rumble? People always seem to dismiss its value, ignoring that fact that it can significantly contribute to the “feel” of a game. However, given your description of the pads, I can guess at why it was left out.
It seems like the configurability could actually work against the idea of a controller – which is about pick-up-and-play simplicity. For me, I can see it most useful for old M/K-only games which I’d like to play with a controller (looking at you, Gothic 2).
That said, I’m tempted to get one just to try out how those pads feel. I like my third-party driver which lets me use my DS3 with my PC, but native support is almost always preferable.
Gyro just seems to do nothing at all — I don’t mean that figuratively — when I try it. Shake, rattle, roll, I get no reaction. Can one of you guys talk through specific settings you used? I see the little gyro icon when I go to “Configure Controller” for a game, but nothing seems to make it actually work. Since it could be the deal-maker, I’d like to get it functioning!
So I am a pc controller virgin.
For years I have stuck to my mouse and keyboard. It’s worth noting I have an amazing mouse that I am in love with.
So many coop games I have played where I have been told you need a controller, rocket league being a great example but I always manage to hold my own.
I have pre ordered the steam controller as for me it looks and sounds really exciting.
It clear to see that valve are really pushing the boundaries of what has been a static market for so long now.
My main worry is that I am not one for spending ages messing around with settings.
I really hope I can stick with the controller through the early stages as it’s clear this is only going to get better with time. The fact that people are already uploading their configs for games is all I need to make me feel better.
I have read so many reviews where people either love or hate the controller but for me you summed this up in your review by saying you will have to retrain your brain.
I am expecting it to feel a little alien at first and that’s fine, this is after all something very new and different than what we are used to.
So rocket league is going to be my first game to try this on. Most likely with Gregg at the same time also on his new controller.
I have also completed borderlands 2 so may give that a whirl to see how it feels.
These are exciting times indeed.
Luke, the Steam Controller should be a useful addition even if you wind up not using it that much. Overall there’s more that’s good about it than bad. It doesn’t fill every possible role (and doesn’t really mean to), but it helps out with specific stuff quite well.
It’s best to describe the SC as good for a type of gaming, rather than a type of game: where you want to sit, how many people are there, etc.
As to spending time in settings, don’t worry about that; if anything the problem will soon be there are too many community-made options for each game. At worst, using other people’s suggested settings will mean a little more time retraining yourself, but I guarantee you only need to tweak and tune your own settings if you enjoy doing so.
When your controller comes in be sure to let us know how it works out for you!
Matt, did you check out that MGSV video above? I’ve no idea how to set it up because I don’t own one yet, but that guy seems to get a pretty good config going from what I gathered. Definitely take a look on Youtube, particularly the latest Woodsie video on CS:GO. If I recall correctly he had difficulties setting his gyro up properly until he saw that video.
Ah, I forgot to mention rumble being missing so I’m glad you brought it up Botch. I’ve never personally understood the love for it, and almost always turn it off. I just find it an irritating distraction that yoinks me out of the experience and draws my attention to the interface itself, which isn’t a good thing in my eyes. ‘Hello Mr Hands! You’re holding a controller that’s going c-razy! BVVVVVVVvvvvvvv’.
I do have one good rumble memory from playing Tomb of Rooms (www.electrondance.com/side-by-side-tomb-of-rooms/) and it was very, very subtle and worked wonders at evoking a sense of dread. Other than that though, I got nothin’.
You raise a good point on pick-up-and-play simplicity as well and I think unless the user-made config/profiles system becomes effortless and reliable to use then the controller could become its own little microcosm of PC gaming, that is, powerful and flexible if you’re prepared to research and tinker, which isn’t what everyone wants. My hope is that by the time Nov 10th comes round (and beyond) there’ll be a raft of tried and true configs for all kinds of genres that you can just lock and load (and perhaps then tinker with). We shall see though!
I had not checked the video, Gregg, and you are a stud for finding it since I now know how to make gyro work on my Steam Controller!
Ozzy!
Seems Valve added customisable radial menus to the Steam Controller at some point, but it’s not been widely reported:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamController/comments/3qjoxk/the_new_radial_touch_menus_are_something_ive_been/
I <3 radial menus so this is great news. My controller arrives next week. Much excite!
Luke and I both got our Steam Controllers in the post yesterday. Annoyingly my controller was missing the USB dongle so I can only play wired at the moment, which isn’t a major as the cable is surprisingly lightweight, but still.
The controller is fucking weird, but comfortable. The back paddles are firm and it’s taking some remembering that they’re actually there – new buttons and all. The trackpads themselves feel great with the haptics. The trackball setting actually feels like a trackball spinning. It’s weird. The thumbstick is solid and the dual-stage analogue-to-digital rear triggers have a Gamecube controller quality about them which is perfect for me as I always loved them. The dual-stage thing is a revelation though and I can see having numerous uses. The face buttons are unusually placed (by necessity I guess) but are perfectly serviceable — I mean, Hailey didn’t grumble about them for a start. The top shoulder buttons barely depress which doesn’t feel right after the 360 controller.
What’s exciting me the most at this stage, and even Luke, who’s not a tinkerer, are all the options to get everything feeling just how you want them to. I loaded Rocket League, went to community profiles, tried out a few of the top ones and then tweaked them based on my own preferences. Boom. You can go much deeper than that though.
I had a play around with the gyro settings too and it’s a lot snappier and more responsive (and obviously customisable) than the Wii U’s controller on Splatoon. Very promising.
The build quality is good but the clicks from all the buttons seem to give off the idea that it’s tacky when that isn’t really the case. There’s a lot of clever design and smart tech inside and outside this thing. It’s an entirely different beast that’ll improve as Valve refine and flesh out the software to utilise it more. Unlike a standard controller (and mouse and keyboard), it handled pretty much everything I threw at it last night, which is pretty great for a first run. More testing to come.
I started with the free Rocket League and that’s how I ended going to the genuine copy. The controller is great, ergonomic and comfortable to game with.