Good evening my fellow bees!
This is a quick and dirty sample configuration that I have been successfully using to play Secret World Legends via Steam, using a pair of Nintendo joy-cons. (Well, okay, if you’re going to twist my arm, I’ll admit they’re third-party.)
To install this via Steam, simply follow the link - steam://controllerconfig/secret%20world%20legends/2876322657 Or look for community configurations, as I’ve also uploaded it there.
Here’s a quick preview image -
(As for making joy-cons work with Steam, that part is simple: add each one as you would a regular wireless Bluetooth controller to your computer, and then Steam’s joy-con functionality will handle the rest.)
This is not all my original work - this is actually based off a configuration that was made around 4 years ago for the PlayStation 4 controller by someone going by “My Weakness” who titled it “almost everything config including menus”. As Nintendo Switch joy-cons do not have a touchpad, sadly this is not including menus. However, with an alternate mode for the d-pad, up and down become equivalent to scrolling up or down with the computer mouse, which helps navigating all those menus significantly. I would also recommend keeping the sensitivity for the camera and a mouse controlling joystick rather low, then turning up camera sensitivity only within the game - this may seem like a bit of a nonsense faff, but I found it makes it possible to more easily navigate menus without feeling like your cursor is wildin’ out all over the place.
A few additional quirks to know about other than the fact that menu support isn’t really there, and the d-pad now also works as mouse wheel scroll when coupled with the left bumper, there simply wasn’t enough buttons to deal with – or at least enough buttons to deal with that I could handle given my scrambled mind Dash so short cut number one has been a little left out of the proceedings. if you have a controller with additional buttons, or simply are able to give up something like the print screen button instead of taking 5 million screenshots of your character (unlike myself), you should be able to easily remap this. The abilities being mapped to the controller also very much show my idiosyncrasies so take this as a jumping-off point for whatever becomes most comfortable for you in terms of what abilities go to what buttons.
As for who needs this? Well very few people I’m sure. However, I’ve recently had shoulder surgery, and have ongoing shoulder problems; you can probably understand why I’m more comfortable playing with joy-cons than I am with keyboard and mouse - you can simply stretch yourself out better. That means I can actually play a game instead of just getting my shoulder really angry at me! So hopefully this will help someone else, or at least be a novelty of a thing you can technically do.
Please note that for this to work you have to run Secret World Legends through Steam – this doesn’t mean you have to convert your account, just adding the launcher like a non steam game works fine and is actually what I do. However you will also need to be in the Steam beta, as that is currently where joy-con support is being tested (and from my experience, working very smoothly indeed).
Of course, you will still need to use the keyboard for things like chat, and for navigating menus and doing things like accepting rewards or looking at journal entries you’ll need to kick things into that UI interface mode and mouse around with that joystick. It’s not the most elegant solution, but it’s also not entirely impossible to play with once you get the hang of it. This whole thing is a bit of a kludge, but it’s a kluge that works and is honestly something I’m pretty proud of figuring out, given that it’s a disabled person making this with the aim of helping other disabled people!
Now that I’m able to play again, maybe this time I’ll make it past Tokyo…
Cheers to all, and hopefully I’ll see you around in game! (Just, uh, maybe don’t expect me to be quick to chat back at you.)
-Delia “Microhierax” Shepard