What makes the Steam Deck essentially the most distinctive piece of gaming {hardware} at the moment out there? You is likely to be tempted to counsel its spectacular graphical horsepower crammed into such a small type issue, or transportable entry to Steam, and even the software program gymnastics it does to make Home windows video games play on Linux. That’s all cool for certain, however for my cash the Deck’s killer function is its rear grip buttons and twin entrance touchpads, which make it completely distinctive amongst gaming units. These non-standard controls are shortly altering the best way I play one style particularly: first-person shooters.
Simply with the ability to so simply get pleasure from such video games on a handheld is definitely worthy of reward by itself. However as I’ve performed round, mapping shooter controls to totally different areas on the machine, I’ve began to appreciate that the Steam Deck stands uniquely positioned to alter the best way we work together with shooters. Crunching PC mouse-and-keyboard management schemes onto gamepads has at all times required compromises, however Steam Deck’s distinctive array of inputs permits for novel combos that prioritize motion and aiming whereas offering new methods of interacting with the sport.
Take into account the rear grips. Anybody with a Scuf or Xbox Elite controller isn’t any stranger to again paddles. Whereas many swear by these items, which clearly supply advantageous management flexibility that isn’t in any other case attainable, Scuf’s patent on rear-side management options imply paddles will stay not often loved novelties till {hardware} producers determine a approach to standardize their inclusion. Arguably, Valve has finished simply this with the Steam Deck.
Each Steam Deck mannequin, even the most affordable, offers you a set of 4 rear-mounted buttons which completely assist with video games that weren’t designed with controllers in thoughts. However in addition they profit video games which might be designed for gamepads.
Whereas it’s been nice to play video games like Halo while not having to take my thumbs off the analog sticks, firing up Crysis has keyed me in to the opposite good thing about rear buttons: shifting previous the tyranny of the usual online game controller structure because it’s existed, just about unchanged, for the reason that late ‘90s.
To be honest, Crysis has been translated properly sufficient to a typical controller expertise ever since its 2011 Xbox 360 / PS3 port. However the 2008 PC unique took PCs’ expansive array of buttons and keys as a right. Altering between go well with features, choosing up objects, and swapping attachments and fireplace modes all felt far more pure on a mouse and keyboard.
The console gamepad controls have been filled with compromises. Sprinting, for instance, routinely engaged the go well with in Pace mode and thus drained vitality. On PC you used a mixture of buttons and mouse actions to change up go well with powers, one thing that interprets properly to the Steam Deck’s rear grips. Switching the controls to “Traditional” mode lets you shortly pull up the choice menu with both bumper, after which choose the suitable mode with mapped buttons on the again, leaving your thumbs free to give attention to aiming and motion. Such a management scheme retains the superior features of the PC unique, with out the necessity to compromise and cram too many features into fewer inputs.
One other nice instance of a sport the place the extra inputs would rule—although in a heartbreaking twist, Steam Deck can’t play it in the mean time—is available in Halo Infinite and its weapon dropping. Normally that requires holding down Y, however you’ll be able to map “weapon drop” to a paddle or keyboard key to drop weapons immediately, and with out sacrificing a thumb in your sticks. This immediate weapon drop is so disruptive to the aggressive meta that eUnited’s Tyler “Spartan” Ganza not too long ago expressed the way it unfairly favors these with paddles.
If having extra features at your fingertips can modify and maybe elevate a sport, why not think about a future by which paddles come normal on sport controllers? Think about the expanded options and ease of play we’re lacking out on by sticking with the identical decades-old units of inputs each “new” console technology.
The Steam Deck affords a glimpse of such a future. In Crysis, the rear paddles let me immediately execute the power soar, crouch and go susceptible, swap weapons, or change go well with features, all with out sacrificing aiming or motion. Crysis can get moderately powerful and hectic, so prioritizing agility whereas nonetheless having fast entry to the go well with features shouldn’t be solely very handy, I believe it lives as much as the spirit of the sport’s fantasy of being a soldier with super-powered armor. It’s a disgrace Future 2 shouldn’t be as simply accessible on the Deck; it’d profit significantly, too.
The front-facing contactpads are simply as revelatory. With the flexibility to acknowledge easy directional gestures on high of being clickable, the touchpads are my go-to possibility when sniping. It’s form of a disgrace Halo: The Grasp Chief Assortment’s anti-cheat for multiplayer doesn’t play good with Steam Deck, as dropping to the touchpad beneath the best analog stick for some fast, precision sniping affords a wild new stage of management I’d like to attempt it out in opposition to different gamers. For now, solely the Covenant, Flood, and Prometheans of the campaigns must cower in worry of my newly lethal snipes.
The Steam Deck management expertise isn’t excellent. Halo: The Grasp Chief Assortment particularly doesn’t need you utilizing a keyboard, mouse, and controller on the identical time, so that you’re nonetheless restricted generally in how a lot you’ll be able to rearrange bindings. However even simply having a secondary type of analog enter to manage superb aiming, or zoom stage, makes the sport really feel a bit extra complicated and nuanced. I’d like to see what a developer may do if it natively factored Steam Deck’s expanded inputs right into a sport’s design.
First-person shooter controls have been lengthy caught within the mud; the style has rotated across the identical handful of management schemes for many years now. The Steam Deck affords a potent demonstration of how new enter kinds and button preparations can supply legitimately higher methods of interacting with even these very standardized varieties of video games. There’s lots to construct on right here, however first {hardware} makers have to decide on to make such improvements attainable by shifting past right this moment’s antiquated gamepad conventions and truly attempt one thing new.
