Controller Binding for PS4

[HapexIndustries]

Like many other people, my PS4 controller, Dualshock 4, is not being recognized by the game. I have uploaded a relatively comprehensive binding configuration to Steam in the hopes of helping people enjoy the game without spending 20 minutes binding keys like I did.

Pathologic 2 has a lot of unusual bindings, more than the PS4 controller on its own can handle (at least the way the game is designed for PC, which is to use a bunch of unique bindings that could have, arguably, been bound to a smaller number of context sensitive keys... but that wouldn't be Pathologic). It makes sense, given the deliberate difficulty of the game, that the controls are relatively obfuscated. I have no idea what the official PS4 or Xbone bindings are for the game and I didn't check, presumably the game gives some buttons double purposes or some are context sensitive.Or maybe it is simply unplayable, which would be funny, but I doubt it... kinda. In a way, I feel it is more in keeping with the spirit of the game to have endured this.

And now so can you! The bindings are weird but mostly complete, as far as I can tell. I use the left trigger (L2) soft pull as the Mode Shift, which changes the D-Pad and face buttons to their second functions, the more unusual and unique and less used ones. Everything is listed below.

Please comment if I missed something, I will do the same if I discover such. I have not been playing long, though I did put a fair amount of time into the Pathologic HD remaster (and read most of the original on the Something Awful LP Archive, which was pre-retranslation and... wow).

steam://controllerconfig/505230/2295081050

Some notes:

The mouse sensitivity is set very very low because my mouse has a stupid high dpi and I don't want to mess with it. You will likely want to increase it, it is set to 2 above the minimum.

I mapped the standard D-pad buttons for weapons 1-4 but I start with 1 on the left, 2 on top, 3 on the right, and 4 on the bottom. Because I think of things starting like the sun rising, not a clock that starts at midnight. You may want to change 1 and 2 if your brain has been corrupted by this planet of the clocks.

Left mouse button and right mouse button are mapped to R1 and L1 respectively. I hate pulling the damn trigger every time I want to click, it tires my finger out, so this is my solution. Because L2 is used for Mode Shift, if you want a more standard "Triggers as Mouse Buttons" you're going to have to switch a couple things around and maybe set a new Mode-shift, depending on if you like Soft or Full Pull.

Because I feel Soft vs Full Pull is too imprecise for anything important, Full Pull is Stealth. Which means you can freely pull L2 while requesting trades, lockpicking, etc. It's the best I could think of and the only way to make the additional 8 buttons available (without having another Mode Shift which is just too much).

Trackpad is set for leftside is click for Combat Mode (the official bind is Raise Fists but that is misleading because you will raise your weapon if you used it last; it's usually better to just press the button for the weapon you want) and the rightside is a vertical scroll wheel for zooming on the map.


Left stick - Movement (WASD)
L3 - Sprint (Hold, you may want to make a toggle) (Left Shift)

Right stick - Look around/Cursor (Mouse)
R3 - Mark Door (Z)

L1 - Right Click (Right mouse button)
L2 Soft - Mode Shift
L2 Full - Stealth

R1 - Confirm/Fire/Left Click (Left mouse button)
R2 Soft - Concentrate (Left Control)


Left Dpad - Fists (1)
Up Dpad - Guns (2)
Right Dpad - Knives (3)
Down Dpad - Flashlight (4)

Square - Use (E)
Triangle - Reload (R)
Circle - Cancel/Menu (ESC)
X - Jump (Spacebar)

Left Dpad2 - Request Repair (Y)
Up Dpad2- Request Trade (T)
Right Dpad2 - Picklock (B)
Down Dpad2 - Drink Water from Source/Perform Autopsy (X)

Square2 - Light Lantern (F)
Triangle2 - Knock (K)
Circle2 - Inventory (I)
X2 - Journal (J)

Trackpad Left (Click) - Combat Mode (Q, can also press 1-3 for respective weapons)
Trackpad Right (Touch) - Zoom on Map (Mouse wheel, vertical scrolling)

Select - Map (M)
Start - Cancel/Menu (ESC)

[Pancakes]

...but it has three already existing and fully functional controller presets. It's a shame you've made so much work for yourself to set something else up. You'd likely need to upload the controls .xml file for it to be useful for other people to use as well - basic list of controls isn't going to work. They're going to be doing a lot of back and forth tweaking to get things to work if it isn't formatted in the way that the game will read the file.

[HapexIndustries]

There are other presets, for the Steam controller I think, but not for the PS4. I uploaded/shared the config through the Steam controller configuration manager specifically as a PS4 controller, so hopefully it can be found when one searches for other configs, but there didn't feel like enough room to post all this information.

I don't know if there is a way to export the Steam controller configs, I haven't found one.

That said, 'perfectly functional' is only sometimes the case when one loads a configuration for a controller other than the one you have. The translation from Steam Controller to DS4 in particular often leaves something to be desired. The extra buttons on both designs tends to confuse things.

All that said, I am already revising the previous configuration to switch L1 and R2 so that the lockpick minigame is easier.

[Pancakes]

Have you checked the ExternalGameActionSettings.xml in: Users\*****\AppData\LocalLow\Ice-Pick Lodge\Pathologic 2\Settings\

If you're directly editing the config files then you're avoiding any of the problems that come with steam being a third party, interpreting the inputs.

The game's presets make use of shoulders and triggers, analogue sticks including having them pressed in as a toggle, dpad, four face buttons, start/select - as long as a controller has those functions it "should" be able to work with the presets of which the game is absolutely playable to completion with. In the .xml each action is mapped to references to the input so you've got fine control over what you want to swap or combine.

When you have a configuration done in that .xml you can backup/swap etc. the file.

Good luck!