The Steam Controller is one of the hottest tickets in gaming hardware town right now, and for good reason. Valve's second crack at a gamepad crams a lot of great design points into a $99/£85 package, but some of its best features are still emerging as more people begin to use it. Today, for instance, I discovered with the help of my fellow hardware team members that if you have gyro turned on, the best PC controller contender will produce one of my favorite canned audio clips when you drop it.
The Wilhelm Scream has been used in so many films, TV shows, and funny clip compilations online that a lot of you reading this will probably know the soundbite by name. The funny folks at Valve certainly do, because they programmed the Steam Controller to produce a Wilhelm Scream when the device falls from a height.
In fact, the Steam Controller's Wilhelm Scream is being discovered by more and more users as the first batch of gamepads arrives with gamers. This is an excellent use of the gamepad's internal speaker, which will beep at you and produce small chirping noises for various reasons.
What's the functional use of this? I'm not sure there is one other than to give people a chuckle, or maybe diffuse some gamer rage after someone's thrown the controller in frustration.
To get the controller to produce the sound, I set up a few (very scientific) tests which resulted in the video above. I dropped mine from various heights onto my couch (which I fashioned into a crash mat of sorts). I found that it didn't need to fall for too long before producing the sound, but it didn't always scream at me if I dropped it from chest or waist height. A fall from head height was the most consistent in making the funny scream happen, which makes me think this has been designed more as a reaction to being thrown, rather than dropped.
I'd just caution that if you're going to try this with your own Steam Controller, you do it in a safe environment. Make your own crash mat, and certainly don't throw it at anyone or anything - partly because a breaking noise, or an actual person screaming, will probably drown out the noise the controller can make.
No, but really, don't throw controllers at people, and protect your expensive hardware if you're going to put it through drop tests.
Truth be told, I've had my Steam Controller for around a week now, and I'm still working out what all of its various speaker tones mean. I've heard one for it turning on and connecting, turning off and disconnecting, but there have been a few mysterious ones I've heard while going about my day and it's been turned on. There's clearly some hidden easter eggs to Valve's Steam Controller, which makes it such a joy to use.
So far, I'm not seeing a way to customize the various sound effects of the pad in Steam's controller menus. That said, I absolutely wouldn't put it past Valve to include this in a software update at some point down the line. If there's a speaker in there and some storage for different soundbites, the natural next step is to add ways for people to transfer their own sounds.
If you're struggling to replicate the Steam Controller's Wilhelm Scream, you might be running into the same roadblock I was when I tried initially - you need to have a quick play around with Steam's controller settings to ensure gyro is toggled on for the device's desktop profile.
Head into Steam, then settings, then controller, advanced settings, gyro behaviour, and then a setting of your choice should make it work. For mine, I've set it to "Gyro To Joystick Deflection".
I'll be producing a full review of the Steam Controller in the coming days, so be sure to check back for more of my thoughts on it soon.
Looking for the perfect gamepad for you and your platform? Check out the best Xbox Series X controllers, the best PS5 controllers, and the best Switch 2 controllers.
