Steam gamers get another official controller, five years after the last one

PC gamers who prefer gamepads to console-and-mouse have a number of peripherals supported within Steam, from PlayStation 4 to Xbox Series X. The officially official Wireless Horipad for Steam, however, uses twin analog sticks instead of the unusual touch pads that the original Steam Controller employed.

The original Steam Controller, bundled with the long lost Steam Machine and Steam Link streaming hardware, was discontinued in 2019. It was noted for having two trackpads instead of twin analog joysticks. Some found this arrangement more fluid and intuitive, others were put off by having to learn what was basically a new control layout.

Hori’s official Steam controller comes in a more traditional layout, with ergonomically offset thumbsticks, a four-way directionl pad to the lower right of the left thumb, and a traditional X-Y-A-B face button mapping, plus shoulder buttons and analog triggers.

All of this is remapabble, of course, but for console video games that also launch on Steam, Hori is offering an out-of the box solution that plays like a PlayStation or Xbox with no fuss.

There are another four custom buttons that can be assigned multiple functions, whether that’s capturing a screenshot or gameplay, or something else. The “Steam button” in the middle, resembling the Xbox and PlayStation buttons at the center of those consoles’ dedicated controller, will bring up Steam’s Big Picture Mode.

When does the new Steam controller come out?

From there, players are able to customize and remap the controller to their preferences, as any PC gamer would expect. To be clear, Hori’s Wireless Horipad for Steam does not have any trackpads — nor does it have any vibration/rumble capability, or a headphone jack.

The Wireless Horipad will launch by the end of the October, and cost about $50 when it does go live. It’l come in four colors: white, black, blue, and yellow.