Valve actually did it. The new Steam Controller (or as half the internet has been calling it, ‘Steam Controller 2’) went on sale last Monday for $99 in the US, £85 in the UK, €99 across Europe, and a slightly sweat-inducing $149 in Canada and Australia. There were no pre-orders. You either camped on the Steam store or you didn’t. It sold out in about thirty minutes, which honestly feels like the most Valve launch experience possible.
So no, I don’t have one in my hands yet. But I’ve spent the last 48 hours scouring every hands-on review and YouTube hot take I could find, and I want to talk about what’s actually shipping.
Steam Controller 2 Release Date and Price
The Steam Controller release date was May 4th, 2026, 7pm CEST, which is now technically two days ago by the time this is published. The Steam Controller price is €99 in the EU (with the regional variants noted above). It’s available exclusively through Steam, with no third-party retailer pre-orders to fall back on, which is a bold move when you watch your launch sell out in half an hour.
Worth noting: this is not technically called “Steam Controller 2” by Valve. Officially it’s just “Steam Controller.” But because the original launched in 2015 and this one is the obvious successor, the Steam Controller 2 name has stuck in community discussion, search trends, and a fair number of news headlines. According to the Linus Tech Tips’ video review of the controller, the reason why Valve didn’t call it the Steam Controller 2 is to avoid confusion. In this article I’ll be using both because both names are real and Valve’s naming scheme is questionable at best.
What’s Inside the New Steam Controller
Here’s the short version. You get two square 34.5mm haptic trackpads (smaller and flatter than the weird concave dishes on the 2015 model), two symmetric TMR thumbsticks in a DualSense-style layout, a proper D-pad, ABXY, four rear grip buttons, analog triggers, a 6-axis gyro, and a chunky 35+ hour battery. Valve switched from Hall effect to Tunneling Magnetoresistance (TMR) sensors in the sticks, which Gamers Nexus broke down with a custom 3D animation. Essentially, these joysticks should be contact-free, drift-proof, and lower power draw than Hall.
There are four LRA haptic motors total: two in the trackpads, two beefier ones in the grips for HD rumble. There’s a six-axis IMU. And there’s a genuinely clever new feature called Grip Sense: capacitive pads on the back handles that detect when your palm wraps the grip, so gyro aim can auto-engage and ratchet without you mashing a button. Depending on how well it works, I’m a bit thorn on whether this is a gimmick or not. We’ll see.
The Puck Is the Best Bit
You connect three ways: USB-C, Bluetooth, or via the Steam Controller Puck, which acts as a tiny magnetic dongle that’s both a 2.4GHz wireless receiver and a charging dock. You set the controller down on it and it just snaps.
Latency through the Puck is around 8ms, it supports up to four controllers at once, and Valve’s own engineer Steve Cardinali told VideoCardz the whole reason it exists is that “Bluetooth performance can vary across living-room setups […] latency or multi-device device issues.” Translation: Valve doesn’t trust your third party Bluetooth, and they’re probably right.
How the Valve Steam Controller Compares
Versus the 2015 original? Night and day. The old Valve Steam Controller was a one-stick, no-D-pad, dual-dish weirdo that I tollerated more than I liked. This one keeps the trackpads-and-gyro PC-mouse magic but adds every single input you’d expect on a normal pad. Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais said the goal was getting “all the inputs you would expect from regular controllers in the place that your fingers expected.”
Versus a Steam Deck? Almost identical layout, just split into a pad-shaped chunk. Versus an Xbox or DualSense? More buttons, way more customisation, drift-proof sticks, and it costs a bit more. Polygon stated that the Xbox Controller feels like a dense brick in the palms in comparison. I personally find this hard to believe, as my main controller right now is and Xbox 20th Anniversary Edition, and while I have some gripes with it for certain genres that make heavy use of the D-pad, I love its ergonomics overall.
Steam Controller Review Roundup
So what’s the consensus on the Steam Controller 2? From the looks of it, it’s highly praised. On average, the controller’s review score sits around 87% from big names like IGN and PC Gamer.
The pattern across every review is the same. Reviewers showed up skeptical of trackpads-plus-gyro, played a CRPG or a strategy game or, in Engadget’s case, won competitive Overwatch matches against keyboard-and-mouse players, and walked away converted. Ars Technica said FPS aim with the touchpad “approaches but doesn’t quite match” a real mouse, and called it “a revelation once you’ve got it down.”
It’s Not All Roses and Daisies
There are some real wrinkles. Eurogamer doesn’t love the stick placement. They say the symmetric sticks sit too deep into the body and the reviewer’s thumbs were “close enough to clash.” Several outlets dinged the face buttons and shoulder buttons for feeling like cheap rubber-dome membrane, not the clicky tact-switch joy of a DualSense. Bluetooth pairing was reportedly finicky for IGN.
The biggest issue, though, is Steam-only lock-in. Engadget put it bluntly: “Don’t mistake the Steam Controller for a PC controller. Valve’s new gamepad communicates with Steam, and only Steam.” PC Mag flagged that Game Pass titles literally won’t work because Windows 11 sandboxes the Xbox app from Steam Input. Want to use it for Forza Horizon 6? You’re buying it on Steam, not Xbox. Tom’s Hardware’s verdict was the most pragmatic: “It really only makes sense if you do the entirety of your gaming on Steam.”
Steam Machine Controller Tie-In
It’s also worth saying out loud: this is the Steam Machine controller. The fabled GabeCube that the entire Steam subreddit has lovingly meme-d into existence will eventually be shipping with this controller. Alas, the system itself is not shipping yet. Valve blames the global RAM and NAND price spike from the AI gold rush, which is fair considering AI seems to be ruining anything tech related.
When the Machine arrives, the controller will pair to it without a Puck (the antenna is built in) and a Steam Controller will be in the box. When the Frame ships, the controller’s infrared LEDs mean the headset can optically track it inside VR for flatscreen Steam games on a giant virtual screen. The whole pitch is one input language across handheld, living room, and head-strap.
So Should You Buy One?
For now? It’s a $99 controller for Steam diehards, gyro-aim converts, and the ten people who genuinely loved the weird 2015 one. If your library lives entirely on Steam and you’ve been craving trackpads or proper gyro since the Steam Deck made you a believer, the new Steam Controller is available on the Steam store, assuming you can actually find it in stock.
If you’re mostly playing Game Pass or you don’t care about touchpads and gyro, just stick with what you’ve got. This isn’t the controller for everyone, and Valve isn’t pretending it is.
Me? I think I’ll be sticking to my Xbox Series controller for two reasons: I don’t play solely on Steam, and having removeable batteries just gives me that extra peace of mind in terms of controller longevity.
