Gamepad icons on Steam Deck.

Explains how to mod your Steam Deck Witcher 3 to use the Xbox 1 gamepad icons instead of the default Steam Controller icons.

Introduction

Because of how Steam OS/Steam Input currently works, Witcher 3 sees the Steam Deck controls as a Steam Controller, this means it displays incorrect icons in the tutorial and on screen menus (e.g a black circle that represents the steam controller touch pad, when on the steam deck that input is via the left thumbstick)

The Xbox One icons are much more appropriate; with L & R in the thumbstick icons etc.

Here is how I forced the game to use the xbox controller icons instead of the steam controller icons:

Nexus Mods method

Download the Steam Controller No More mod[www.nexusmods.com].

Extract the contents of the downloaded rar file into a "Mods" subfolder under the Witcher 3 installation directory.

On a steam deck for the steam version of Witcher 3, the traget directory is:

/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/The Witcher 3/Mods

If you haven't installed any other mods, you'll need to create the "Mods" subfolder.

The install folder location will be different if you've installed Witcher 3 from a different service (e.g Epic or GOG)

Manual Method

If the above doesn't work for you, you could try manually editing the game files. In desktop mode, open this file in Kwrite

/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/The Witcher 3/content/content0/scripts/game/inputManager.ws

At line 61 change

return IDT_Steam;

to

return IDT_Xbox1;

Save and exit.

You also need to run the game with this launch option:

-forcescriptcompilation

Launch options can be set in the game properties whilst in desktop mode.

Before & After

[drbob]

@gandelf - sorry I don't know why it doesn't work for you. On my deck the red engine window appears and then the game loads after script compilation has completed. Note that I don't have any other mods installed. If you're using multiple mods they can conflict, check one of the Witcher 3 modding guides for how to deal with that.

Have you tried the alternate method using the mod from Nexus Mods? That's what I ended up doing rather than make a change to the core game files, that could get reset by an update from CDPR.

[megahedron]

thanks for this info. i tried running -forcescriptcompilation - i brought up the Red Engine 3 window but nothing happened after that, game doesn't load. Any idea why?