Valve raised some eyebrows in the gaming world when it announced the new Steam Controller for its upcoming Steam Machine hardware.
The controller, which features a pair of trackpads in the place of the traditional analog sticks, was something of an oddity: it looked weird, and didn’t seem like any of the proven designs that are currently on the market. Valve claimed it would work, but it wasn’t exactly clear how well. Now, it seems like Valve might be onto something with its design.
The Seattle-based game company has released a first look at how the hardware will handle on some of the games that are currently on the market. There’s a decent smattering of titles represented, with Valve’s own “Portal 2” and “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” showing off how the controller handles with first-person gameplay. In addition, the Steam Controller appears to handle the mouse-driven “Civilization 5” and “Papers, Please” equally well, which is no mean feat for a controller.
If you want to make sure that you can play older games with Valve’s new hardware, there’s good news: the controller has a “legacy mode,” which allows it to work with any of the games currently on Steam, even those not originally designed to interface with the twin trackpads.
The Steam Machine will be available publicly in 2014, though Valve plans to hold a smaller private beta later this year.
