The original Steam controller went through countless iterations before Valve landed on the 2015 design, which slowly began to resemble things familiar with the Xbox controller or DualShock. It only had one joystick though, for some reason.
One of those early prototypes—named after Chell, the Portal protagonist—featured two circular touchpads on either side with a grid in the middle with Y, B, X, and A buttons. It's easy to see why Valve abandoned this concept, as it was far less ergonomic, with awkward button placement that would have clashed with everyone's muscle memory. However, a few prototypes were built, and some lucky valve enthusiasts have found them in thrift stores over the years.
“I can agree about it being less than the final product”
This weekend, Reddit user Waste-Set5032 stumbled upon one of these rare Steam controllers. “It's dope for me,” they said, adding that their father found it at Goodwill. “When I was a teenager, I wasn't around peak valves, so finding things like this really intrigued me.” For anyone not in the States, Goodwill is a non-profit store that sells donated clothing, furniture and other items at discounted prices.
Valve's idea with the Steam Controller was to make the peripheral more PC-friendly, with trackpads for intuitive navigation. Even in the latest iteration, there are two stuck awkwardly under the joysticks.
Four years ago, Reddit user Creepy-Boss-705 even got hold of a Chell prototype at an eBay auction, and even tested a few games with it.
“I would say that the strangest thing when it comes to this controller is the lack of data regarding its functionality. [sic] After the retail version came out,” he explained, noting that he liked the touch pads on the Chell prototype compared to retail. “I'm still surprised that Steam can recognize it. So far, Steam thinks this is normal [Steam Controller]. The four middle buttons correspond to joysticks, so mapping them is no problem, although odd for me. I can agree that it's inferior to the final product, but I haven't really done much with anything that uses gyro.”
Looking at the incredibly awkward circled circles and unmarked buttons, it's hard to imagine that the controller is much more than a novelty — playing through Dark Souls 2 with the official 2015 version was painful enough. Chell seems like it would be functionally impossible to beat this game. But it's a piece of gaming history, so it's fascinating to see it stumble into the wild after all these years.
- brand
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valve
- Original release date
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September 12, 2003
- Original MSRP (USD)
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N/A
- weight
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N/A
