Valve may be on the verge of announcing the rumored Steam Controller 2 sometime soon, as per a new datamine.
Known Valve leaker SadlyItsBradley took to Twitter/X to reveal an image of what appears to be the Steam Controller 2, found via a datamine of the latest Steam back-end update. The presence of the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file in the database suggests that Valve may be closing in on an official announcement for the rumored successor to its first gamepad.
The leaker clarified that the Steam Controller 2 SVG file found in the Steam back-end database represents a minimalist icon not meant to convey every input or button on the actual gamepad.
SadlyItsBradley referred to an earlier leak from Djundik, creator of SteamDB, which revealed concept designs for the Steam Controller 2. According to the aforementioned leak, the Steam controller’s successor is internally referred to as “ibex” at Valve. Going by the leaked design, the new gamepad comes with a pair of analog sticks, a pair of trackpads, a dpad, eight face buttons, and four shoulder buttons. It likely also comes with rear buttons.
The analog sticks are symmetrical and their placement is similar to that of the Nintendo Switch Pro controller. As for how the images were leaked, Djundik mentioned that Valve had set “freetodownload” on the SteamVR app in order to grant access to anonymous accounts. This made all the depots accessible, and one of the depots included content for the VR headset and controllers (codemamed deckard/roy).
While Valve may be set to launch its new VR headset and controllers, it was reported earlier that virtual reality technology isn’t seeing commercial growth from Steam users. George Jijiashvili, senior principal analyst at Omdia, stated that VR remains stagnant on PC, with only 1.5% of the Steam community using a VR headset, according to Valve’s latest Hardware Survey.
