This is a short clip of me playing Xonotic on a Steam Deck using joysticks + gyroscope to control my character. Xonotic is a FOSS game (it runs on an engine that is actually a direct descendant of the quake engine interestingly) in the genre of arena shooters which are typically considered impossible to play with anything but a mouse and keyboard. When console shooters gained prominence with halo, COD etc... it effectively shutdown a huge number of shooter fans from experiencing how much fun shooters can be that feature quake/arena shooter style movement. You can't functionally play a quake multiplayer style game with joysticks, even with intense autoaim it just doesn't work well. The thing is, and this feels so unexpected I can't help but find it hilarious, with gyro you CAN play a quake multiplayer style game with joysticks + gyro and it actually feels amazing. I am not amazing at Xonotic, but I know how to play (the bots are HARD lol) and with gyro helping with fine aim control I can play very competitively (for how good I am). Oh my, using gyro to steer devastator rockets might just be the most fun I have ever had with a rocket launcher... My steam controller mapping for Xonotic is: Gyro set to always on (set it to toggle on and off with dpad if you want), The 4 rear buttons, 2 bumpers and 2 joystick clicks are mapped to the various Xonotic weapons (number keys). Arguably superior to toggling weapons on a keyboard once you have muscle memory?, Left joystick is mapped to a 8 Way (Overlap) directional pad with an Overlap Region setting of 4100. The Outer Command Radius is set to 29395 (might need to fiddle with this value for your particular steam deck), and the Outer Ring Command set to spacebar., That last setting is the real kicker, when you push the movement joystick (left joystick) to its full extent you automatically start strafe jumping which honestly makes strafe jumping feel more intuitive than using a keyboard and mouse. Keeping momentum through complex direction changes is also super easy since the joystick is basically already integrating that for you, you just pick a direction and push the joystick. The joysticks also don't need to be returned to center like a mouse must. To rotate large amounts with a mouse you have to constantly lift and reset the mouse when it reaches the edge of the mousepad. With a joystick you just hold the joystick... This makes chaining the kind of complex snap rotations that accelerate you in quake style movement mechanics easy and fluid feeling. You are also never caught with your aim centered on a target but your mouse all the way out at the edge of your mousepad in a poor position to track a target. Edit I don't think it needs to be said, but Xonotic could probably run on the computer chip in your refrigerator. My steam deck is stone cold when I run Xonotic on it, I bet Xonotic gets better battery life performance than 95% of 2d games... No issues running Xonotic on linux of course, I just searched for Xonotic in the "app store" of the Steamdeck Linux OS (in desktop mode) and installed it. Then I added it to steam as a non-steam game so I could setup steam controller mappings (I like steam's controller mapping UI but you could use something else).
I don’t have mine yet, but I do have a Steam Controller, and it just tickles me how excited people are by the gyro controls! They’re great, aren’t they?
I started using gyroscope while playing pubg newstate on my phone with touchscreen controls. At first I was like, gyroscope? That sounds like a dumb gimmick…. so I didn’t try it.
Then I played a round with some teenager who was obscenely good at the game and he got real with me and dispensed knowledge to my lame elder millennial self and was like shut up, turn gyroscope so it’s always on and just give it time.
I realized I like many old people don’t know shit, so I tried gyroscope in earnest and haven’t looked back since lol.
It really is the biggest leap in video games to happen in my life time since console shooters became the huge thing with games like halo and cod. It completely changes what is possible and brings a new sense of tactile immediacy to whole genres of video games.
Same! I’ve been playing since it came out, and Pubg mobile’s control scheme is honestly so innovative. I’m glad that other mobile fps have been following suit. I can look you dead in the eye and say that I’d rather play pubg on my phone with gyro always on than on console with without gyro every single time, without question. When you get good at it, it’s legitimately as good as a mouse.
Yeah it is amazing how good some claw players are at touchscreen and gyro, it seems like such a stupid gimmick at first glance. I think the critical element for games like pubg mobile or other similar games is when they let you customize the layout, size and transparency of all the buttons. That transforms touchscreen buttons from the rip-off version of real buttons/keys to a control surface you can perfectly customize to fit the shape of your hand with each finger naturally resting right next to the buttons you need.
It is a very cool experience when you setup a control scheme that works good for you. It feels like learning to peddle a bicycle by sitting upside down and peddling with your hands and realizing somewhat to your horror that it is pretty comfy bicycling like that even though everything seems so wrong.
I really hope it becomes more mainstream. It’s really a game changer (literally)
Gamers have been looking for the next big innovation in gaming, many have fixated on VR as being that thing with $4000 VR goggles…
…meanwhile there are kids and randos everywhere mastering touchscreen + gyroscope mobile shooters on games like call of duty mobile, pubg mobile, farlight 84 etc and other touchscreen games like minecraft fleshing out this whole other realm of gaming that pc gamers as a rule have almost no clue about that will absolutely become a huge part of the future of gaming if not define it.
Simultaneously for the generation of people who grew up playing console shooters with gamepads (who couldn’t afford gaming PCs), gyroscope brings the capacity to finally make gamepads actually GOOD tools to play shooters with.
It is a wild time to stumble into all of this and I gotta admit I love how all the people with super expensive gaming rigs are utterly clueless about how gaming is going to change. It is a wonderful feeling that for once they don’t get to dictate how pc gaming evolves.