Why Does Epic Games Store's Controller Support Require Steam?

Players using anything other than an Xbox One controller with their Epic Games Store purchases will likely need to use Steam for gamepad support.

[porkChop]

It doesn't *require* Steam. The vast majority of PC gamers that use controllers use an Xbox controller because it's the standard. Support for it is built into every game. Steam supports other controllers only because Valve built a custom emulator that supports stuff like the DualShock 4 for example.

[Vits]

I mean having Steam installed and adding your EGS titles just in order to use Valve's controller wrapper is still the best way to use non-Xbox controllers. You can totally do the same with other software, but you will need one for each individual type of controller and some features might not be available. For example, one of the coolest things about Valve solution is that you can implement gyro aiming in basically anything that you want and change how that gyro behaves and is activated.

And I do find it quite odd that Epic hasn't released a competitor yet. If they manage to pack one of these on their engine, I image a lot of developers would rejoice.

[porkChop]

Oh I agree, if you don't have an Xbox controller then yeah playing through Steam would be the way to go. I just disagree with the headline. It's not required for the majority of people.

It would be cool if Epic could build something like this directly into UE5 though, especially if it supports wheels, fight/flight sticks, etc.