I Started Customizing My Steam Deck Controls and It Was Literally a Game Changer
Valve’s Steam Deck has quickly become my favorite portable gaming device. I played – oh my god – 500 hours of Hades II on the Steam Deck alone. However, I spent entire weeks of my life using this device without delving into its most powerful feature: customizable controls. This is why you should use them even if you think you don’t need to.
I initially avoided customizing the controls because I generally like to play the way the developer intended. It ended with me spraining my left wrist while replaying Chrono Trigger . I wanted to keep playing, but I needed to rest my wrist. What could I do?
That’s right: Apparently I should remap the in-game controls so I can access almost every feature in the game with one hand, prop up the Steam Deck, and keep playing. However, once I succeeded, I started experimenting with each game to see what I could do.
Get started by trying out community layouts
Almost every game you can play on the Steam Deck comes with its own pre-made controller layout, but you can always edit it. Simply press the Steam button while playing and then go to Controller Settings. You’ll see a layout showing which inputs are mapped to each of the Steam Deck’s buttons, joysticks, and touchpads. At the bottom, you will see a button labeled “Controller Settings.” Click on it to start editing.
Your first option is to change the entire layout. If you click “Edit Layout” you’ll create a copy of the existing layout with your own changes (which you can always reset), but you can also browse community-created layouts to see if someone has made something that works better for you. If you try a community layout and don’t like it, you can always change the original layout back.
Make games designed for a mouse feel more natural
One of the Steam Deck’s most requested superpowers (and what, in my opinion, makes it superior to most Windows laptops) is its dual trackpads. These little squares under each joystick work similar to your laptop’s trackpad. They have haptic feedback and you can even press on them. The Steam Deck has a touchscreen for text input, but in my opinion, trackpads are a better alternative to mouse input.
For example, Stardew Valley is a game originally developed for PC, and while its controller support is great, there are still a few menus that would benefit from using a mouse. The default controller input maps to the right trackpad, which will be treated as a joystick input. However, I changed mine to read like a mouse. This allows me to quickly click on menus or hover over items with more ease than using a controller.
You can change this behavior in the Trackpads section when editing your controller layout. You can choose from several types of behavior (the nuance between “Joystick” and “Like a Joystick” can be confusing ), so experiment with what works best for you. You can also add your own inputs for a simple touch and click on the panel.
Improve ergonomics with buttons on the rear handle
The four buttons on the back (labeled L4, L5, R4 and R5) quickly became my best friends. Depending on the size of your hands, they can be a little difficult to reach, but they are what allowed me to play Chrono Trigger with just one hand while the other was wrapped in a cold compress. They’re so easy to enable that you don’t even need to customize your controller layout.
Each button on the rear handle can be assigned to any existing input, but you can go even further by changing their settings. Click the gear icon next to each input and you can configure each button to register a single press, double press, long press, or a number of other options. You can even configure one back button to register the start of a key press, and then the other back button to register the release of that key. So, for example, if I want to buy thousands of pieces of wood from Robin’s store in Stardew Valley , I can start clicking the “Buy” button and then walk away to grab a bite to eat while the numbers go up. (Or I could install a bulk purchase with a gamepad mod , but still.)
There’s also a powerful turbo settings menu, although it’s worth noting that you should probably use it with caution in any multiplayer games unless you want to get your account banned. You can set the button to quickly repeat input by holding it down, adjust the interval between inputs, or even set it as a toggle.
Create your own input menu overlays
By far one of the coolest features of Steam Deck is the ability to create your own input menus. My favorite is the pie menu. This creates an overlay on top of your game that allows you to assign different inputs to the wheel for easier access. When editing the layout, go to the Trackpads section and from the Behavior drop-down select Create Radial Menu. This will allow you to create a radial overlay that appears every time you touch the touchpad.
This has been a lifesaver for me in games like Stardew Valley , where cycling through the toolbar is more cumbersome than on the desktop. In the default configuration, you press the left and right triggers to step through the toolbar. No; my custom radial menu allows me to quickly jump to the slot I need with one swipe.
You can create radial menu layouts and apply them to touchpads, joysticks, or even gyroscope controls (more on that below). This is one of the best ways to expand the capabilities of your game, especially for games that are not specifically designed with gamepad controls in mind.
Get precise aiming with the gyroscope.
This is often overlooked, but Steam Deck has built-in gyroscope capabilities and you can enable them for any game in your library. Something like that. Steam Deck will try to match the gyroscope movements to inputs that the game can understand, which usually works pretty well but can be finicky depending on the game. This is where you’ll have to experiment a bit.
By default, the gyro controls are disabled, but you can enable them with a simple toggle in the controller settings. After this, you can activate the gyroscope movement by placing your thumb on the right control stick. The top of this stick is touch sensitive so you don’t have to move it, just touch it. This also works when tapping on the right touchpad, but you can change this behavior in the controller settings.
As long as you activate the gyroscope control, the Steam Deck’s tilt will send the appropriate mouse commands to your game. In my experience, this works great in first-person games like Doom Eternal , where you use the right control stick to aim the camera. The gyro movements will give you a little more control precision when tilting the deck, while keeping your thumb where it would normally be on the control stick anyway.
The amount of effort that has already gone into making most Steam games play well on the Steam Deck is already incredible. Before it came out, I was skeptical that it would work , and I’ve never been happier to be proven wrong. Between the official developer support and community layouts, almost every game I played on the Steam Deck felt like it was made for just that.
But this does not mean that customization should stop. Even if you’ve never had problems with the controls on your Steam Deck, it’s worth delving into the customization tools to see if you can make your games work better for you.