The PlayStation 5’s new controller – the DualSense – now works on Steam. Valve announced controller support over the weekend. It is available to players who have signed up the public beta for Steam’s desktop client, with the wider release coming soon.
DualSense support is provided by updating the Steam client itself, i.e. for every game that is used the Steam Input API can now use DualSense. “No developer updates required, it just works,” says Valve. Developers can use the DualSense’s LED, trackpad, rumble, and gyro features, and gamers can configure them for PC versions of PlayStation 4 games such as Death stranding and Horizon: Zero Dawn.
As if players actually use Valve is a gamepad for their Steam games and says yes they kind of do! “Over the past two years, the average number of users playing a Steam game on a controller every day has more than doubled,” Valve said. “Some games, such as skateboarding games, have well over 90% of their players using controllers in-game.”
The growth in the use of gamepads is particularly high for PlayStation controllers, which have increased from 10.9% of games played on controllers to 21.6% in the past two years.
The DualSense arrived on November 12th with the PlayStation 5. In our review, it was referred to as a “literal game changer” thanks to its new feel, “adaptive triggers” whose resistance can mimic game effort, and the use of its internal speaker to complement world audio.
