I've used many gamepads across many platforms, and to date, only two have actively repulsed me due to their build quality. The first was the Ouya gamepad. The second was Valve's original Steam Controller. Ouya is long-dead, but Steam remains the biggest name in PC gaming. Now, 11 years after the original Steam Controller debuted, Valve has released a new version. It's a pricey $99.99, but fundamentally better in every way thanks to a deep feature set, terrific feel, and customizable controls like those on the Steam Deck. The downside? Although the Steam Controller is compatible with the Steam Deck, PCs running Steam, mobile devices through the Steam Link app, and (eventually) the Steam Machine and Steam Frame, it doesn't support consoles or Xbox Game Pass games on Windows. Even with those limitations, the Steam Controller is an excellent gamepad. It's easily one of the top options for anyone with a huge Steam library, and that's why it earns our Editors' Choice award for game controllers.

Design: New and Improved in Every Way

I can't overstate how much better the new Steam Controller feels in terms of build quality. One of my biggest complaints about the first version was how light and cheap it felt. It seemed almost hollow, practically rattling and wobbling between the loose-feeling triggers and the removable back panel that flexed to serve as the rear buttons. The new Steam Controller is much more solid, comparable with an Xbox gamepad in heft and grip curve. It’s still mostly plain, matte black plastic, but textured to be more secure and less slippery than its half-glossy predecessor. The touchpads have a smooth, satiny finish that's so much nicer under the thumb, the triggers have smooth tension that doesn't feel remotely spongy, and the permanently attached rear buttons are nice and clicky. It feels better to hold in all regards.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

The build isn't the only major improvement the new Steam Controller has received: Its control layout is completely overhauled. The original gamepad had only one analog stick, located to the left of the four face buttons, with the two circular touchpads above them. This meant your thumbs would naturally fall onto the touchpads, making it slightly awkward to move them to the stick and buttons. It also had no digital direction pad whatsoever.

Now, the controls are laid out just like the Steam Deck, only without a huge screen between the left and right grips. There are two analog sticks, located parallel to each other like on a PlayStation controller, with a plus-shaped direction pad and four face buttons (ABXY in the Xbox arrangement) sitting to the upper-left and upper-right of the sticks, respectively. The difference in height between the sticks and the other controls is slight; all four elements are almost in a line to make room for the Steam Deck-like square touchpads in the gamepad's center. This makes the touchpads feel secondary to the sticks, pad, and face buttons, which they should be; they can be advantageous in many cases (strategy games, for example), but an overwhelming number of PC games support a conventional gamepad. The pads are still accessible, and their lower positions mean you probably won't accidentally brush your thumb against them when you use the conventional controls.

The gamepad's face holds four additional buttons: Steam and Quick Access in the center, Menu (Start, in classic terms) above the left analog stick, and View (Select, traditionally) above the right analog stick. Menu and View are generally for in-game menu navigation, map access, and similar functions. The Steam button opens the Steam overlay or Big Picture mode. Quick Access pops up a quick settings menu. 

The Steam Controller's top edge features the standard left and right bumper/trigger pairs, plus a USB-C port in the middle for wired controller use. On the back, you’ll find a three-contact magnetic connector near the top, for the magnetic transmitter puck, plus two more pairs of left and right buttons on the grip. The rear buttons feel solid, a marked improvement over the first controller.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

Features: Touchpads, Gyros, and Tunnel Magnetoresistance

The Steam Controller has the Steam Deck's many features (except for the touch screen, of course), including standard gamepad inputs with tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) analog sticks to prevent drift, two touchpads, gyroscopic controls, four rear buttons, and new left- and right-grip sensors. They're capacitive touch sensors on the grips that activate when you squeeze them. The controller also provides haptic feedback, vibrating the gamepad and making the touchpads "click" when you press them.

The only thing the DualSense has that the Steam Controller doesn't is the cool adaptive triggers that adjust their resistance based on what you're doing in the game. It's not a big loss, as the tech is one of the PS5 gamepad's most under-supported aspects (and PC games don't support it without mods).

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

Of all of the Steam Controller's inputs, the grip sensors are the only ones that I didn't find useful at all. Although you can set them to any input, they're primarily intended to enable gyro-based aiming by activating the gyro controls when you're holding the gamepad and deactivating them when you aren't. I encountered one problem during testing: Due to my hand size and how I hold controllers, I constantly made contact with the sensors. I had to consciously keep my grip light and my palms slightly away from the sensors so the controller wouldn't trigger them too often.

I spoke with Steam engineer Steve Cardinali and designer Lawrence Yang about the grip sensors, and they offered some of their own use cases. They explained that the sensors are meant to be always active when holding the controller, with the idea that you would always want gyro aiming available in a shooter, and that the motion sensors can be quickly reset by releasing the grip for a moment. They also said the sensors could be set as negative controls, sending an input when either grip is released, providing instant access to maps and other menus without moving your thumbs. These seem like useful ways to configure the Steam Controller's grip sensors for some players, but they didn't really fit how I enjoy my controls. Fortunately, there's no end to customization options, which I'll get to later.

The Tiny Transmitter and Battery Life: An Excellent 1-2 Punch

I've tested many wireless gamepads with little USB dongles, and plenty with full charging cradles, but the new Steam Controller is the first I've seen that combines both. The magnetic transmitter puck is a tiny 0.3 by 1.9 by 1 by 0.3-inch (HWD) black plastic rectangle with a three-contact pogo connector on the top, a USB-C port on the back, and a rubber foot on the bottom. It’s designed to plug into your PC or Steam Deck with the included cable and sit on your desk or any other convenient flat surface.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

To charge the Steam Controller, just place it on top of the puck. It will magnetically snap to the connector on the back of the gamepad. If it doesn't, just wiggle the gamepad a bit until the magnets catch. It doesn't lift the controller up to show it off like the cradles included with the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller and the 8Bitdo Pro 3, but it's just as convenient and takes up very little space. Although the puck weighs a little more than half an ounce, the rubber foot on the bottom keeps it in place and prevents it from being dragged down by the included USB-C cable.

Besides the magnetic puck and wired USB, you can also use the Steam Controller over Bluetooth. It’s a bit awkward, requiring you to switch to Bluetooth mode while the controller is off (hold B and the right bumper while pressing the Steam button to turn on Bluetooth). To use the magnetic puck’s wireless connection again, you must turn off the gamepad and then hold the A button and right bumper when you turn it on.

Besides the puck and USB cable, the Steam Controller doesn't come with any other accessories. At under $99.99, it's understandable that it doesn't include the swappable analog sticks or direction pads found in more expensive premium gamepads, such as the DualSense Edge or Xbox Elite Wireless Controller. A carrying case would have been a nice addition, since the Steam Controller is still pricier than most standard gamepads.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

Valve says the Steam Controller can last up to 35 hours between charges, comparable with the 40 hours of the Switch 2 Pro Controller, Xbox Elite, and Xbox Elite Core, and way, way longer than the four to eight hours you'd get with the DualSense or DualSense Edge. If you find yourself traveling without the magnetic puck, you can also charge the Steam Controller via a USB-C cable.

Connectivity: Loaded for Steam (and Only Steam)

Despite its extensive features and connectivity options, the Steam Controller is specifically designed for Steam use, whether on a PC (or Windows gaming handheld) or a Steam Deck. It doesn't appear as a standard XInput gamepad in Windows, and it doesn't work with consoles. It does work with mobile devices, but exclusively through the Steam Link app and, like on PC, doesn’t register as a standard gamepad. I primarily tested the Steam Controller with a PC, but it should behave more or less identically with a Steam Deck, down to the similarities of menu and settings navigation between Steam's Big Picture mode and the Steam Deck's interface.

Obviously, this isn't a problem if you play your games through Steam. You can add non-Steam titles to your Steam library to use the controller with them, but Steam serves as the messenger between the Steam Controller and your game. I tested the controller with several non-Steam games and had varying success. I tried setting up Fallout 4, Jazz Jackrabbit 2, and The Witcher 3 through GOG, manually adding each game's executable to my Steam library after running them for the first time to get them configured to my system. Of them, The Witcher 3 worked perfectly, while Jazz Jackrabbit 2 required manual configuration of the digital inputs. Initially, Fallout 4 detected my button inputs via the default profile that enables the touchpads to act as a mouse, but switching to the generic dual-analog profile made the gamepad work perfectly. 

(Credit: Valve)

During testing, the biggest problem I encountered was the Xbox app, the home of Xbox Game Pass on PC. I couldn't add game binaries installed through Xbox on my Windows 11 test PC; the Xbox app said I didn't have permission, even as an administrator. Windows 11 locks down the Xbox app and any games installed through it on a system level, so Steam can't register them. That means no Xbox Game Pass games will work with the Steam Controller, so if you want to play, say, the upcoming Forza Horizon 6, you must buy it through Steam, not Xbox. 

Customization: You Can Tweak Virtually Anything

Steam provides an absolutely mind-boggling number of customization options for the controller. Impressively, you can remap every digital control to virtually any input your PC can register, whether it’s a keystroke, a gamepad button, or a mouse click. Likewise, you can adjust the sensitivity of the analog sticks, analog triggers, touchpads, and gyro controls, and set separate commands for half- and full-pull operations of either analog trigger. I was happy to see that I could save those changes to individual profiles for every game I play. If you don't want to customize every game, the Steam Controller supports Steam's preconfigured and community controller profiles, which can be easily found in the profile menu.

The many options can be overwhelming, which is why most are buried a few levels deep in the Controller section of Steam's settings menu. For the majority of games that support standard dual-analog controllers, you don't need to do anything; by default, the Steam Controller behaves like a generic gamepad, with the left and right touchpads acting like the analog sticks above them.

(Credit: Valve)

Outside of games and Big Picture mode, the right trackpad acts like a laptop's trackpad, moving the mouse cursor. I tinkered with the desktop mode controls, setting the lower-right rear button to toggle gyro controls on/off and making the gyro control the cursor. I don't like using trackpads, so this gave me precise mouse controls just by tilting the Steam Controller.

The Experience: Responsive Controls You Can Adjust to Taste

I played several games with the Steam Controller, both natively through Steam and manually added from GOG installations. For 2D platforming and exploration, I played Dome Keeper and Jazz Jackrabbit, while for 3D action, I played Fallout 4, Pragmata, and The Witcher 3. Steam games predictably worked perfectly, as did GOG games after the aforementioned tinkering. The basic gamepad controls felt great; the analog sticks were moved smoothly, the face and rear buttons were nice and springy, and all of my inputs were responsive.

Although I'm not a touchpad fan, the input devices worked well in and out of games. With 3D games, they doubled as analog stick inputs; outside of games, they provided good mouse and scrolling controls. The touchpads don't physically click, but they feel like they do thanks to subtle haptic feedback.

(Credit: Valve)

Gyro controls were also spot-on in my tests. I set them to act as the right analog stick while playing Fallout 4, and they provided much more precise aiming than the traditional analog sticks usually afford me, moving my cursor as I tilted the controller. Being able to instantly switch between the control schemes was a huge boon, too.

The Steam Controller worked perfectly with my iPad, which has the Steam Link app installed (though I had to pair it over Bluetooth instead of using the magnetic puck). While my iPad detected the puck and established a wireless connection, the controller only acted as a touchpad mouse, not a gamepad. Switching to Bluetooth mode fixed that; all the games I accessed through Steam Link played just as they did when played directly on my laptop.

It's a shame I couldn't use the Steam Controller to play Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 or Forza Horizon 5 because my copies are Xbox app installations. This is the controller's biggest weakness, particularly if you’re a dedicated Xbox Game Pass user. The obstruction is clearly on Microsoft's end, and how Windows 11 and the Xbox app control game installations. Still, it would be cool if Valve introduced a separate mode that lets the Steam Controller operate as a generic Xbox-adjacent gamepad. The hardware's certainly there, so maybe a firmware update could fix it.