Two years ago, Valve told The Verge it wanted a successor to its cult classic Steam Controller, whose incredibly customizable buttons and touchpads paved the way for the Steam Deck handheld PC. Now, Valve watcher Brad Lynch claims a Steam Controller 2 — codename “Ibex” — is actually getting made.
His sources tell him the Steam Controller 2 is currently being tooled for mass production, and it’s apparently not the only new Valve gamepad on the way!
Remember the long-swirling rumors about Valve’s standalone “Deckard” VR headset, the one that could be an inexpensive Meta Quest-like wireless alternative to the aging Valve Index? Lynch has discovered references to a new wand-like “Roy” controller in Valve’s SteamVR code, and his sources say that Roy is now aimed at mass production as well.
What’s more, “Roy” may have enough buttons to double as a Steam Controller gamepad when it’s not acting as your hands in VR. Unlike the Index wands, they’ll apparently have a D-pad, bumpers (aka shoulder buttons), and a full set of ABXY buttons for traditional gaming as well.
Would be really happy to see them make another real one instead of that Steam-branded regular controller by Hori that came out. The original was not so easy to get used to by everyone with the trackpads being mandatory instead of optional but if the second one did the same thing the Steam Deck does and included both traditional controls as well as decent trackpads I think it would be perfect. Still really like my original Steam Controller too.
Also definitely interested in seeing what Valve sees the next tracked VR controller being like. The Index controllers have lots of interesting ideas but were never really utilized to the degree I hoped and some parts like the way they try to do finger tracking are probably outdated in them.
@virtualreality@lemmy.world