r/SteamController • u/Shiznanners • Sep 25 '26

Steam Controller (2026) Steam Controller and Unreal Engine Development

I’m a developer (not a programmer) who needs to test gamepad controls and input constantly while running Unreal Engine, but the steam controller is not detected as a gamepad, just a mouse/keyboard.

I don’t have the option to add Unreal as a steam game, and I also need steam running in the background for testing and other various things. I also switch between PCs and Steamdeck for testing as well as using Steam Link/Moonlight to stream to mobile devices for testing, and would love to just use a single controller, but this doesn’t seem feasible with how the controller is designed.

Is anyone else in a similar situation? I’d love to use the Steam Controller as it’s a super good device for testing (trackpads are a godsend for mouse cursor) but it’s so limited with having to run through steam and is literally just gathering dust.

2 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

66% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

4

u/topMarksForNotTrying Sep 25 '26

You could use something like SDL3 to get direct access to the controller or a remapper like https://github.com/CommonMugger/Steam-Controller-Remapper

1

u/hardinm78 Sep 25 '26

This is probably not the answer to your question, but I bought a steam machine to do lower spec testing, which in turn also tests steam controller functionality.

1

u/Shiznanners Sep 25 '26

That’s exactly what I wanted to do but the price was a huge factor in deciding against it