On Monday, Valve announced SteamOS, a brand new PC operating system tuned specifically for gaming. It followed-up that announcement on Wednesday with the reveal of Steam Machines, new hardware from Valve and its partners that can profit from SteamOS. Today Valve revealed the general piece of its front room strategy: the Steam controller.

The controller itself is the oddest-looking online game controller to be revealed since Nintendo’s Wii controller. Rather than the joysticks which have become standard on modern controllers, the Steam controller has dual trackpads. In accordance with Valve, the gigantic, circular trackpads will allow for a far better input fidelity than joysticks. The trackpads also feature “super-precise” haptic feedback to supply players with physical context. The intention is to make traditionally PC-centric genres equivalent to real-time strategy a true possibility using a controller.

The second most noticeable oddity in regards to the Steam controller is button placement. In place of the standard four-button diamond formation for the suitable side of the controller, A, B, Y, and X buttons are put on the within edges of the touchpads. The four trigger buttons at the top of the controller look like fairly standard, however the device also has two large buttons on its rear side. There are a complete of 16 buttons at the Steam controller, with both trackpads and the heart touch screen clickable.

The touch screen just mentioned could have a high-resolution display. Developers can be capable of use the screen however they prefer, and touching the screen displays an overlay at the main gaming screen, allowing players to apply it without looking down.

The Steam controller was designed to work with Steam’s entire back-catalog of games. To complete this, Valve has created a “legacy mode” that enables controller buttons to be easily mapped to a normal keyboard. Moreover, Valve has stated that it’s going to release some form of tools to permit modders to open up the controller and hack around with it.