Steam Controller update lets you carry your custom configurations to any PC

You can now take your Steam Controller to a friend’s house, and it’ll remember how you like to play.

A Steam Beta update released this week, adding some cool extra functionality to Valve’s Steam Controller. The controller is designed as a keyboard-and-mouse alternative to use with a Steam Machine or Steam Link that’s connected to a TV — it’s part of Valve’s efforts to take PC gaming to screens where consoles traditionally dominate. The Steam Controller doesn’t feature a traditional D-pad, but you can customize it heavily depending on how you like to play different games, and that’s where things get clever.

This latest update lets you register your Steam Controller to your account, and Steam then stores all the custom configurations you’ve set up for different games and aligns them with this controller. If you then take the controller to another PC, you can play with your custom configurations even if you’re not logged into your Steam account. This feature also enables individual players to use their own custom set-ups for local multiplayer games.

It all sounds pretty neat, but as with any change, some Steam users are reporting teething problems, such as the loss of configurations for non-Steam games. Valve says that it’s expecting some issues, though, and it’s currently working on bug fixes.