(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Valve on Tuesday announced release details for the Steam Controller, alongside reassurances that its Steam Frame and Steam Machine gadgets are still on track for future release. The Steam Deck 2 has yet to have firm updates, but Valve confirmed it remains in development.
In a conversation with IGN, Valve programmer Pierre-Loup Griffais was asked about a second-gen Steam Deck, and said, "We’re hard at work on it." However, there’s no clear release window, and further comments suggest it may be a long way from release.
"Obviously, every step of the way, if you look at our hardware projects over the years, you can draw a straight line from the original Steam Controller and Steam Machine to Steam Deck, to everything that we're announcing and shipping this year," he added. "And we expect Steam Deck 2 will be a lot of the same, where a lot of what we're doing here will be learnings that build up to it.”
The original Steam Deck launched in early 2022. Many of Valve’s rivals have released multiple generations of handheld gaming devices since the original Steam Deck, but Valve is holding fire.
A year and a half after the first-gen Steam Deck, Valve updated it with a mid-gen refresh, the Steam Deck OLED, featuring an improved screen. Griffais told IGN in November that Valve is "not interested in getting to a point where it's 20 or 30 or even 50% more performance at the same battery life.” Instead, it's focused on what he called truly next-gen performance.
Even further back, in late 2023, Valve told The Verge that a Steam Deck was at least a couple of years away, leading some to speculate about a new version in 2025 or this year. Although Griffais' latest comments don't confirm that we won't see a Steam Deck 2 as early as this year, it sounds like development isn't far enough along to start predicting release dates.
There’s no lack of new Steam hardware, though, with the brand announcing its new controller will be available from May 4. In our review, PCMag gave it an Editors’ Choice award, with Will Greenwald noting that it "feels great, performs well, and has an incredible list of features and customization options. At $99.99, it’s pricier than most standard gamepads, but less expensive than premium controllers like the DualSense Edge and Xbox Elite. But considering everything it does, the Steam Controller is a worthwhile purchase if you mostly play games on Steam.”