---
title: 'Steam Controller Review: A PC Gamer''s Dream?'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=s3wx401x_ek'
video_id: 's3wx401x_ek'
date: 2026-08-14
duration_sec: 1053
---

# Steam Controller Review: A PC Gamer's Dream?

> Source: [Steam Controller Review: A PC Gamer's Dream?](https://youtube.com/watch?v=s3wx401x_ek)

## Summary

This video provides an in-depth review of the new Steam Controller, comparing it to other popular controllers and highlighting its unique features like gyro, trackpads, and the charging puck. The reviewer shares their hands-on experience over two weeks, praising the controller's ergonomics, customization via Steam Input, and battery life, while noting some trade-offs like the lack of a 3.5mm jack and smooth plastic texture.

### Key Points

- **Initial Impressions and Context** [00:00] — Valve sent two Steam Controllers; the reviewer has used it extensively for two weeks, comparing it to the DualSense Edge. They have very few complaints and are genuinely surprised by its thoughtful design.
- **Key Strengths** [01:11] — Ergonomics are great, trackpads are S-tier, gyro is a surprisingly great feature, charging puck is nice, back buttons are excellent, and battery life is incredible.
- **Steam-Only Limitation** [02:07] — The controller only works with games running through Steam. Non-Steam games (e.g., Diablo 4 via Battle.net) require adding the game to Steam first, which is a notable limitation.
- **Size and Shape Comparison** [02:32] — The Steam Controller is larger than PS5, Xbox, and Switch 2 Pro controllers. It feels great for big hands but may be less comfortable for smaller hands or children.
- **Comparison to Original Steam Controller** [04:06] — The original 2015 Steam Controller lacked a traditional D-pad and second joystick, focusing on trackpads for mouse input. The new controller achieves PC gaming from the couch without compromises.
- **Gyro and Grip Sense** [06:01] — Gyro is enabled via Steam Input, and Grip Sense allows toggling gyro by gripping the controller. This makes gyro feel natural and seamless, especially in shooters like Returnal.
- **Trackpad Versatility** [09:09] — Trackpads are highly accurate and comfortable, with haptic feedback. They can be used for mouse input in strategy games or mapped to keyboard shortcuts (e.g., weapon swipes in Doom).
- **Puck and Battery Life** [11:07] — The Puck serves as both receiver and charging dock with a strong magnet. Battery life is about 35 hours, and up to four controllers can sync to one puck for local multiplayer.
- **Back Buttons** [11:50] — Back buttons are well-positioned and pronounced, avoiding accidental presses. They received overwhelmingly positive internal feedback at Valve.
- **Sticks and Haptics** [12:41] — Sticks use Tunnel Magneto Resistance (TMR) technology for better longevity and battery life. Haptics are strong but adjustable via Steam Input.
- **Missing Features** [14:01] — Notably absent: changeable D-pads/stick heights, trigger travel toggles, adaptive triggers, speaker, and 3.5mm jack. The smooth plastic chassis lacks grip.
- **Price and Verdict** [15:02] — Priced at $100 USD. The reviewer considers it fairly priced given the features, and plans to use it as their primary PC controller, but notes it's not a must-buy for everyone.

### Conclusion

The Steam Controller is a strong contender for PC gaming, offering unique features like gyro and trackpads with excellent customization via Steam Input. While not a must-buy for everyone, it's a worthy upgrade for those who value its capabilities.

## Transcript

Oh, Steam Controller. Valve sent me one of these two weeks ago. In fact, they sent me two, and those scoundrels at Vbrand somehow got word, and so they sent me a prototype of the Companion Cube case for the Steam Machine, and I'm like, guys, just because the Steam Controller is out does not mean the Steam Machine is out. I think they knew that, they were just excited, so anyway, we'll talk more about that at the end of the video.
For now, let's focus on the Steam Controller. I've been using this extensively over the last two weeks. The only time I haven't been using it was when I was reviewing Starus using a DualSense Edge Controller, which is kind of a perfect point of comparison since the Edge is like an insanely expensive,
but insanely stacked controller, like literally the most advanced feature-packed controller in existence. So going back and forth between that and the Steam Controller for the last two weeks has really helped me zero in on what I do and do not like about this thing.
I'm gonna say, right off the jump, that I have very few complaints about this controller. like actually kind of no complaints. I could list features that it's missing compared to other controllers or personal preferences when it comes to materials or aesthetics or ergonomics, but at no point was I
using this and thinking to myself, oh that's bad, I wish Valve didn't do that. On the contrary, my time spent with it was often filled with genuine surprise at how well thought out many of its aspects were, how much of an improvement it is even over the Steam Deck controls, and how versatile this
controller is thanks to Steam Input and all the community-driven approach to controller mapping that comes with that. The ergonomics are great, the track pads are S-tier, gyro is a surprisingly great feature which we'll definitely talk a lot more about, the charging puck is also really nice,
the back buttons are excellent, and battery life is incredible. I don't know if you need to run out and grab this if you already feel well serviced by your current controller of choice, but if you are in the market for a controller to use on PC, and if you want to give yourself significantly
more options than playing PC games with a controller, then I think there's a bit of a no-brainer for reasons we'll certainly cover. Let's start with a quick unboxing though, the Steam Controller comes in that standard cardboard box that Valve really seems to like, a little bit of flourish on the outside, your games at your fingertips, a quick rip of the
cardboard seal, and we're in, revealing a very simple set of instructions, as well as the controller itself and the puck. There's a USB-C to type a cable in there, and when all is said and done, that's what we're left with. Very easy, very simple. Playing it into your PC for the very first time does trigger a firmware update for both
the controller and the puck. After that, it will start working with your Steam games, and this is the first major call-out about this controller, it will only work with games running through Steam. I did test this on Diablo 4 playable through the Battle.net launcher, and it did not register
this controller at all. It is possible for me to add that Battle.net Diablo to Steam, which would then allow me to use this controller with that, but it will not work without doing that configuration work first, so do be aware of that.
Probably good to talk about the size and shape of this thing next, and a good frame of reference is to compare it to other controllers you are already familiar with. Here it is with a PS5 controller, as you can see it has similar dimensions, so people with big hands are going to like this one, I know I do.
The Xbox controller is much more tapered on its size, and ultimately feels slightly smaller in the hands versus the Steam controller. The Switch 2 Pro controller has similar angles on the grip, but it is substantially smaller in the hands than the Steam controller.
Doesn't really look it in the side by side here, but in the hand you absolutely feel it. I actually really like the Switch 2 Pro controller, but it's just a touch too small for my hands. If I'm holding it naturally, both of my thumbs kind of overshoot the thumbsticks, but that definitely doesn't happen with the Steam Controller.
It just kind of like naturally sits there. It just feels great. So I do think this is another important call-out here. The Steam Controller is larger than other controllers, so I do think that people with smaller hands may not enjoy it as much as people with larger hands,
and I also wonder how kids might go with this thing. The other thing I will say is this. Of the four controllers I just showed you, they're all excellent controllers. Like, you know, of the four of them, no single controller is like the best one. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.
Also, we have our own personal preferences. So some like big controllers, others prefer small. Some prefer the symmetrical thumbtack layout. Others prefer offset. Some people really like back buttons and others care about like the feel of the plastic.
So if you're deciding on whether or not you might want to get a Steam Controller, I would encourage you to think about what it is you love about your existing controller and then ask like, does the Steam Controller have that? And if it doesn't, could you live without it? There is of course a fifth controller that I have not mentioned yet, and it's this bad boy.
The original Steam Controller from back in 2015. This thing is a real work of art in the contemporary sense, where some people look at it and think, oh that beautiful I love it and others think holy hell what a monstrosity cast it into the flyer I actually interviewed two people who worked on the design of the latest Steam Controller Lawrence Yang and Steve Cardinale Here what they had to say about the OG controller It been 10 years
It actually predates both of us. I was around Valve when we shipped that, but I wasn't on that team. And I think that we like it a lot, and it solved a lot of the problems that we were hoping to solve with it,
in that we really were hoping to make a controller that could play your PC games that may not work well with a controller, but would work well with a mouse and keyboard. So making a controller that could handle mouse and keyboard input
seemed like an interesting opportunity for the team. And we shipped it. We like it. We learned a lot. And a lot of the stuff that went into the Steam Deck,
I guess it was six or seven years later came from our learnings from the Steam controller, from the original Steam controller. This thing was defined by the absence of a traditional D-pad, the absence of a sticking joystick,
the inclusion of back buttons, before that was cool, and most notably, the inclusion of a trackpad, a move that Sony would emulate in their own much more limited way later on. And of course, the Steam Deck would carry that idea much further on after that.
As Steve was saying, the principal design goal was to make PC games playable with a controller. And it did that, but it sacrificed a lot to get there. The defining characteristic of the new Sega Tola is that it accomplishes that goal of like PC gaming from your couch
without any compromises at all. Now, there are two main ways that it does this and these ways are targeting two specific problems when it comes to PC gaming on your couch. Mouse inputs for games that require a mouse, particularly strategy games or automation games or whatever,
but also precise aim in shoes. So let's talk about the precise aim thing first. Now, Gyro is old technology at this point with PlayStation and Nintendo controls both supporting them for a long time now. The new Steam Controller also supports it,
and it has a new feature called Grip Sense, which allows me to toggle the grip function on and off simply by releasing my fingers on the back of a controller. There are actually sensors built in here that will detect whether or not I'm
gripping the controller, but if you don't forget, I can actually kind of hold it like this without gripping the bottom of it, and that's perfectly comfortable too, and so the choice of a full grip can become an input if I want it to be. It's a bit hard to explain, so I think I'll show you a worked example, as that's the best way to show up
this tech, and how I personally have been using it in my testing. So this is Returnal on PC, by default, no gyro support at all. Housemarque did not design this game to work with gyro support, but that doesn't matter because Steam Input handles all of that for me.
Steam Input is a layer between your controller and the game, and allows you to customize the shit out of your controller experience. Remap entire buttons, create shortcuts that weren't there before, download custom community made mappings and yes, enable gyro in games that do not support it.
You do this on a per game basis. You right click on the game, manage, controller layout, on this screen you will see the option to change the default layout and it's here you can browse for those other community made layouts which can be quickly downloaded and applied to your game.
It's also here that you can enable back button mapping, as you can see I've downed my jump and dash to the back button so I never need to take my fingers off the sticks while I'm playing. I've set gyro to joystick camera, so it's essentially recreating what the white joystick
would be doing in terms of controlling where I'm looking. I can adjust the sensitivity of the gyro for more subtle or more exaggerated movements, and now I can go to advanced gyro settings, and this is where I can configure the gyro toggle using grip sense.
Now, to be clear, I don't need to use grip sense for this. I can bound this toggle to any button I like, and I can also use grip sense as an input for other things that I've mapped, but it works extremely well in a game like Returnal
because I actually don't want gyro enabled all the time. When I'm running around, exploring, etc., I'm happy just to use the sticks. When I'm doing that in Returnal, I'm actually holding the controller like this, and it's pretty comfortable, no problem. When combat begins, I grip the controller fully,
and then gyro becomes enabled. At that point, I'm still using the stick for larger camera movement, but I'm also using the gyro for more subtle movements and aim adjustments, and it just feels fantastic. It does take some getting used to,
but it genuinely feels like a straight upgrade over playing without it, and the difference here is how easily it can be toggled on and off, because having gyro enabled all the time in a game can be annoying, and having to hit a specific button to turn it on or off doesn feel particularly intuitive but just fully gripping a controller to toggle it on or off just feels so natural and you stop thinking about it after you start doing it because it just so seamless So that is a really smart innovation from Valve that I think is going to get a lot of mileage
Personally, I play shooters on keyboard and mouse exclusively because I hate using a stick to aim. With this, I can definitely see myself playing more shooters with the controller. Probably not the ones where I'm playing competitively, but certainly those like single player shooters, you know, Returnal and Metro and Bioshock and whatever else.
The other problem the SIG controller looks to solve is letting you play mouse-only games on PC by giving you access to trackpads, and it does a fantastic job of that because these trackpads are incredibly accurate, and they have a nice little haptic feedback effect that kicks in when you move them, and it just feels great.
I tested it with Civilization VII, which does support controller, and moving back and forth between the SIG and the trackpad, since you can actually use them both at the same time, the trackpad is just so much nicer to use, so much more responsive, so much more accurate, it's just a straight upgrade.
Also, the trackpads are very comfortable because Valve had done a lot of thinking as regards to the ergonomics behind these trackpads. You'll notice that unlike the trackpads on the Steam Deck, the Steam Controller trackpads are slightly tilted,
since your hands are sitting at a different angle. They also sit in a depressed section of the controller that drops off towards the bottom, at an angle that sort of mirrors the arc of your thumb as you move it from the top to the bottom of the trackpad. So they're incredibly responsive, incredibly comfortable, but also surprisingly multi-purpose.
And I'll admit, I don't really want to play strategy games on a trackpad. Like, I know you can do it with this controller and it works fairly well, but I still would rather use a keyboard and mouse. What I'm much more likely to use these extra trackpads for is as controller maps.
So, for example, Doom the Dark Ages. Doom is great here because it has a key bind for each specific weapon. So, what you can actually do is map swipes on that touchpad to the specific keys on a keyboard. so I can bind weapon 1 to a swipe up on the touchpad, weapon 2 to a swipe right, weapon 3 swipe down, etc, etc.
I did that for a total of 10 weapons since there's four directions on the touchpad and you can also press them as a button presser. That's pretty cool, right? You've essentially got yourself another like 10 buttons on this controller without them being actual buttons.
So these are two big selling points of the Steam Controller, gyro and trackpad. And the point I've been trying to make here is that when you think gyro and trackpad, you may think, oh, that's not really for me. but there's actually multiple use cases for both of these technologies and chances are you're going to get some use out of one or both of them
if you start testing them out and figuring out how to make them work for you. Outside of that, I'd say the Puck is easily one of the best features. It doubles as the receiver and the charging dock and it's magnetic and it's a really strong magnet such that all you need to do is slide the controller over the docking station and it'll just snap to it.
Bounce down you can get around 35 hours of battery life out of this thing which is a hell of a lot better than the 35 minutes I get out of my DualSense Edge But the truth is I never actually stress tested the battery because the dock was just so convenient
I would just finish what I'm playing and then just like drop the controller on the desk and it would just like magnetically suck right? You know what I mean? Like just, you don't think about it, it's just, it's done easy. Oh, by the way, you can actually sync a total of four controllers to one puck, making local multiplayer super easy for those of you that are into it.
I definitely want to call out the back buttons here. One of my complaints about the Steam Deck is that the back buttons aren't great. They're so flush with the device that it's a bit awkward to press them. The feet control of the back buttons are a totally different story.
They're much more pronounced without being so large that you're accidentally pressing them all the time. The top buttons in particular are exactly where your middle finger pads rest, so it's very natural to use them. I really love these back buttons and according to Valve, I'm not the only one.
It's funny, we kind of took one stab at it and the feedback we got from internal users was so resoundingly positive that we're like, okay, well, this is good. we're going to not touch it and just bring it to production.
Made some minor tweaks just to help with grip strength and making sure inadvertent presses wasn't too big of an issue. As for the more traditional controller elements, a few things to call out here. The face buttons are probably fine. The D-pad is also fine,
though it has been improved versus the Steam Deck. Still, I think the Xbox's more clicky D-pad is better, at least to my personal preference. The sticks are actually a very big deal because they're using something called Tunnel Magneto Resistance, or TRM.
It's a new technology that's meant to provide even more, you know what, I'll let Val explain it. I think the T-MAR sounds like, I think, gloss over a little bit. Yeah, they're really big. We spent a lot of time looking at those and trying to figure out okay there this new technology is it ready yet Can we put it into this controller Because we been interested in it for a while Because SICRIPT is a thing that happens with controllers and we wanted to figure out new ways to mitigate it
And these magnetic-based controllers or magnetic-based thumb SIC are one of the ways to address that issue. So we looked at the TMR technology. They're also really low power draw, so it improves battery life to use them.
and I think we're really happy with how those end up and how they feel. So better longevity, better battery life, all thanks to TRM. That's a nice upgrade. Haptics is one area that I might call out briefly.
The haptic motors in this thing are pretty strong and I found that some games, particularly like Silksong, the haptics were hitting a little too hard so I had to manually adjust them down, which is something you can do with Steam Inputs. That's fine. It's not a problem in the sense that they can be adjusted,
but I do suspect that more than a few people will notice this very heavy haptic feedback profile when they start playing around with the controller. Now, of course, no one controller has everything, and the SIG controller is no different. Notably absent are things like changeable D-pads or stick heights, trigger travel toggles for
less depressing, god that was hard to say, no adaptive triggers like on the PS5 controller, and no speaker. Also, no 3.5mm jack, a real bummer for a controller that's so focused on like PC gaming from your couch. All of that is the kind of general give and take
you'd expect from modern controller designs. The one thing I would have liked a bit more though is some like texture on the chassis. You know how the Switch 2 Pro controller feels incredibly smooth, like basically slippery? The Steam Controller
feels similar to that in that it's a very hard feeling, very smooth plastic. I personally really like how some of the Xbox controllers have some rubber surfaces on their base to make it feel really grippy where you need it. The PS5 controller also has
different plastic on the bottom that's more grippy than the plastic on the top. The Steam Controller has neither of those things, and I would love to see a later version of the controller employ some different materials to give it a bit more grip at that bat. Okay, let's finish up by talking about price.
This thing is $100 USD, $150 USD. Is it cheap? No, definitely not. Is it expensive? I do look at how many features are packed into this thing, and I don't find myself thinking that sounds like a rip-off.
The controller, the puck, the gyro, the touch pads, the haptics, the bat buttons, all of that incredible support baked into Steam Input, there are no shortage of cute controller options that work on PC. So it's not like Valve are looking to sort of like
price down you by selling you one type of controller and you've got another option, they're just offering you an option. And it's got a lot of features and I think it's fairly priced given how much it can do, but everyone is going to have
their own personal view on that. I guess I'll finish up by talking about how much I plan to use this thing going forward. This is the controller that I will be using on my PC from now on. I've been using the Xbox controller for years, fantastic controller,
but this controller does more stuff, and I'm happy with the ergonomics. And that really is it. This just improves my controller experience on PC. Having said that, its improvements are not so essential that I'd say you definitely have to run out and buy this right now. Instead, it's simply
another very strong contender in a pool of very worthwhile contenders. And I would say that I I think it is the best option for a PC controller if you value the unique features and customization that it offers, but it's not like the definitive best controller ever made, must purchase,
yadda yadda, it's not that. Speaking of customization though, if you are thinking of grabbing a SIM controller, then channel sponsor dbrand are selling skins allowing you to customize how it looks. They only sent me trackpad skins at the moment because they were still manufacturing the
rest when I put this video together, but you know what else they sent me? This thing. This is the companion cube shell that will house my Steam Machine when it finally arrives. This is actually a prototype that dbrand sent me, and they were like, oh, we'll need that
back by the way. And I'm like, oh yeah, I will definitely send that back, and hope it doesn't get lost in the mail. So I have my companion cube ready to go, and if you want to sign up to be notified when it's available for pre-order, I'll leave a link to that below the like button, along
with links to those Steam Controller skins I mentioned earlier. A big thanks to dbrand for sponsoring the video, a big thanks to Valve for sending the controller, and a big thank you for watching. See you next time, goodbye. Thank you.