Five-and-a-half years after the first Nintendo Switch units appeared on store shelves, the console’s unique Joy-Con controllers can now be used on Steam to control your PC game of choice.
Introduced in the latest Steam Beta, Joy-Cons can be used individually as a hand-cramp inducing mini controller, or as a matched pair for a more traditional gamepad experience. In other words, it’s exactly how you’d use them with a Switch, barring the ability to physically clip them to the side of the screen.
To try this for yourself, you first need to be opted in to receive Steam beta updates. To do this, head into your Steam settings and find “Beta participation” in the Account menu. Click “Change”, then select “Steam Beta Update” and restart.
Technically, as our sister site PC Gamer notes, you’ve been able to use Joy-Cons with PC games for some time. But the solution provided all the way back in 2017 wasn’t especially good, only allowing you to use a single Joy-Con, rather than pairing them as Nintendo intended. This official Steam support is far better, giving you a rudimentary multiplayer set-up for split-screen PC gaming in a pinch, as well as the far more comfortable matched pair configuration.
Speaking of other Switch controllers, the latest Beta patch notes also report “improved support for the Nintendo Online classic controllers”. That’s the N64, SNES, NES and Genesis Bluetooth controllers built for retro titles, though it’s not clear what the improvements actually are.
