That's complete BS.
I was planning to jump back in to finish the game since I'm using a Titan Xp now and can enjoy it at native 4K but lack of controller support would mean it's not playable without that fix. :\ I'll go hunt that down, I guess.
It's not that there's
no controller support, it's that XInput appears to have been replaced with Steam Input in the latest version of the game. Previously, both were supported with an option to toggle between the two - though it required you to restart the game.
However - based on some of the responses here, I'm wondering if XInput support is still present when using an Xbox controller, or another controller using an external tool like DS4Windows or Xpadder to emulate an XInput device.
It's possible the issue here is actually that connecting a controller with Steam Input enabled automatically disables the game's XInput support, instead of allowing you to mix the two; e.g. trying to use a DualShock 4 or other DirectInput controller with Steam Input configured to send the game XInput commands.
But as someone who was a big fan of System Shock 2 when NightDive ported it years ago and got into Thief 1+2 as a result, I can't say I'm mad. I'm about 6 hours in and Prey feels like coming home to a style of game that died a long time ago in favor of shallow "RPG-lite" shooters. I feel like I should pick up Dishonored next and support Arkane - hearing that Prey didn't do so well in terms of sales really bums me out.
It's very disappointing that one of the few games which really feels like a modern take on that game design (the "
Immersive Sim") is doing so poorly - even relative to
Dishonored 2 and
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, which were both disappointing sequels.
Though 2017 has been a very strong year for games,
Prey is still sitting at #1 for me thus far.
I've said it before, but I can't think of the last time a game grabbed my attention like
Prey did. It's been years since there was a game which I was constantly thinking about in my time away from it, and trying to spend every available moment I had playing it until the game was done.
I know quite a few people it had the same effect on too; mostly people that grew up playing PC games - which I don't think was a coincidence. While you can play it with a controller, it's one of the few multiplatform games which feels "PC first" in its design choices, rather than being built as a "console game".
Even better than that: Before controller support was inexplicably removed, Prey was one of the few games that accepted gamepad and mouse/keyboard control at the same time. You could even set the game to only display controller prompts, all the time.
We've been over this. You need to bind
actions to your config, not legacy keys. If you do that, you get analog movement + mouse aim, and it displays the correct controller glyphs automatically rather than Xbox prompts.
I don't know why they appear to have removed XInput support, and Steam Input does not do a good job of handling aiming with an analog stick compared to XInput (it stutters), but it's not like the game doesn't support controllers at all, or needs modding to use one.
