We’ve known since November 2025 that Valve was working on three new pieces of hardware: the Steam Machine, the Steam Frame VR headset, and a new Steam Controller. Memory and storage shortages have since pushed the Machine and Frame into uncertain release windows, but the Steam Controller is going its own way. Valve has confirmed it launches May 4, 2026, for $99.
That puts the Steam Controller well above the DualSense ($74.99) and Xbox Wireless Controller ($64.99), and a good chunk below premium options like the DualSense Edge and Xbox Elite Series 2. The feature set helps explain it. The Steam Controller uses magnetic TMR thumbsticks designed to avoid the dead zones that plague conventional analog sticks over time, dual trackpads carried over from the Steam Deck, HD rumble across four motors, and gyro support for motion controls. Four programmable grip buttons sit on the back, and a new input called Grip Sense uses capacitive touch in the grips to toggle gyro aiming on and off, letting you “ratchet” the controller back to a comfortable position the same way you’d lift a mouse off the pad to recenter it.
Connectivity runs through the Steam Controller Puck, a wireless dongle that doubles as a magnetic charging dock. The controller clicks onto it to charge between sessions, and Bluetooth and wired USB-C are supported as well. Valve says the 8.39 Wh battery is good for over 35 hours of play on a single charge. The controller works with anything that runs Steam, including the Steam Deck, the Steam Machine when it eventually arrives (it pairs without needing the puck), and the Steam Frame, where infrared LEDs let the headset’s cameras track the controller for use in VR. Thanks to input parity with the Steam Deck, it’ll also ship with community-built configurations for thousands of games on day one.
For PC players who liked the original Steam Controller’s trackpads but bounced off its weirder design choices, the new model looks like a much more conventional pad with the trackpads built in. $99 is a lot to spend on a controller that doesn’t work with consoles, but no other gamepad offers a dual-trackpad layout, and the Steam Input integration goes deeper than anything third-party can match. With the Steam Machine and Steam Frame still in limbo, Valve at least gets to ship something in the first half of this year.
