How to Play Deadlock With a Controller

During all the time I spent playing this game, I used a controller, and I will continue to do so! So I created this guide in case any other person wants to try it. Enjoy!

Video version of this guide: https://youtu.be/05xTBesW8QY

DISCLAIMER

This game is in EARLY ACCESS. Everything in this guide will probably break at some point. If that's the case, please leave a comment, and I will try to fix it!

Nice comments telling how much you loved the content of this guide are also welcome. Thanks!

12-06-2024: The default controller configuration was updated, and I had the opportunity to discuss the layout closely with the guy responsible for implementing this new layout, because of that, most of the problems previously mentioned in this guide are now fixed and the official layout is heavily based on my layouts.
I was even mentioned in the patch notes (@FlickStickVids, that's me!).

Introduction

Playing Deadlock with a controller—is it possible? And is it viable? Yes, definitely. However, if you tried playing this game with a controller before the patch released on 12/06/24, you probably noticed some things were very wrong with this control scheme.

For instance, there were a lot of buttons missing from standard controllers, like reloading and crouching. But other things were just bad no matter which controller you were using, like leveling up your skills required you to press the options button + the face buttons. Yikes!



This game is early in development so I will update this guide as time goes on. Of course, devs are prioritizing keyboard and mouse players, thankfully most of the problems were already fixed so you can play Deadlock right now with a controller without many compromises.

Why?

First I will address the elephant in the room. “Why would you play a PC game without a mouse?"
It all comes down to comfort, ergonomics and versatility. I can play the game on the Steam Deck, couch, bed, whatever, and the game will still play the same with the comfort of a ergonomic controller. It's just a preference thing.

"But isn’t that less precise?”
Only for Xbox players. This game does not have aim assist, but it does have gyro aim support so if you have a PlayStation or Switch controller you can use your wrists to aim with mouse-like precision. In fact, gyro is always active by default in the official configuration, so this is how the game was meant to be played.

If you don’t know what gyro is, it’s basically a motion sensor that allows us to emulate a mouse, this works because mice are also motion-controlled, so translating one Motion control to another motion control is naturally easier and more precise than translating to an analog stick.



So in this game, we will use the analog sticks to get close to our target and use gyro to do the rest of the tracking, flicking, target switching, recoil control, and so on.



But if you feel like handicapping yourself, I will show how to use gyro only while aiming or how to disable gyro completely.

How?

There are 3 official layouts, one without gyro, one with gyro always on, and another with Flick Stick. I modified the new official layouts to my liking, but most of the instructions in this guide work on both layouts, mine and the official. Use the default official layout if you don't want to use gyro.

To Import my configurations it’s really simple: go to Steam, settings, in-game, and toggle “use big picture when using a controller”.
Now open the game, press the home button on your controller, go to controller settings, click on the name of the config, and move over to the Community tab, here press the "show all layouts" button and search for my configurations. They are called:

• Deadlock - Flick Stick Config by FSV (v2.0)
  
• Deadlock - Gyro "Always On" Config by FSV (v2.0)

Or copy one of these links on your internet browser:

• Deadlock - Flick Stick Config by FSV (v2.0): steam://controllerconfig/1422450/3379605739
  
• Deadlock - Gyro "Always On" Config by FSV (v2.0): steam://controllerconfig/1422450/3379608982

I will release updates for my configs, to use them, just re-import the latest version following the same process mentioned above. Go to the "Bugs and Notes" section to read the patch notes.

Controls:

Face buttons: Jump, Crouch (toggle), Parry, Reload.
South Button (Hold): Zipline.
West Face Button (Hold): Re-center Camera.
Dpad: Items.
Right Bumper: Ping / Self-cast.
Right Bumper (Hold): Comm Wheel
Left Bumper (Hold) + Face Buttons: Use Abilities.
Select (Hold) + Face Buttons: Upgrade abilities.
R3: Punch.
L3: Dash.
Start: Open shop.
Start (Hold): Open menu.
Use Gyro/Trackpads/Sticks to navigate menus.
Use the Right Trigger or the South Face Button to confirm.

How to navigate menus?

This game doesn’t have d-pad support, you can use analog sticks to move the mouse cursor, but they are much slower in comparison.



If you are using a Steam Deck or a PlayStation Controller, you can use the right trackpad to navigate menus, and in normal gameplay touching the right trackpad will open up the scoreboard, so you can upgrade your skills and check the progress of your teammates and opponents while moving. The official layout moved this feature to the left trackpad and added camera movement to the right trackpad.

Flick Stick

FlickStick allows you to flick the camera in any direction by flicking the analog stick, or to sweep smoothly if you put the analog forward first, you will need to rewire your brain to play like this because you will need to rely on gyro to look up and down, but it’s super fun and precise to use.

How to change sensitivities

Since we are all sweaty gamers here, we all have our preferences, so you will probably want to change the gyro or the analog stick sensitivity. Instead of changing the mouse sens in-game, navigate back to the controller settings screen and click on edit layout, now click on the gear icon beside the feature you want to configure and change whatever setting you want. Just note that the gyro sensitivity slider follows the natural sensitivity scale, which means you can use the same sensitivity you are already used to in other games because this scale refers to the number of 360°s you can do in-game with one 360° in real life. So 1;1 will translate one degree in real life to one degree in game, and 1;4 will translate 1° degree in real life to 4° in-game.

How enable gyro only while aiming (ADS Only)

Import "Deadlock - Gyro "Always On" Config by FSV (v2.0)", then navigate back to the controller settings screen and click on edit layout, now click on the gear icon beside the gyro feature. The first option will allow you to change the gyro activation button, change it to the aim button, and change the behavior to "Hold to Enable Gyro". It should look like this:

Bugs and Notes

The devs baked in a very useful feature for gyro players, that being a re-center button, click R3, and the camera re-centers, the thing is… you couldn't disable that, now you can!!!



Now, to re-center the camera, just hold the west face button.

Notes

Configs v1.3: Added self-cast. Press the Right Bumper to Self-Cast.
Configs v1.4: the latest game update broke "Jump/Mantle". Jump/Mantle was replaced with "Space bar", which may cause some stutters, but at least you can jump in the zipline.
Config v1.5: Added a Zipline button. Fixed Stutters while jumping. Improved menu controls (it's easier to get in and out of shops now)
Config v2.0: Added new features like Crouch (toggle), replaced "gyro to mouse" to "camera", and replaced emulated flickstick to native flickstick.

For more Gyro Configs:

Here's my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@FlickStickVids

Here's a list of all of my configs: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266410893

Thx for reading!

[LittleNinja]

Is it possible to adapt this to Steam Controller?
It's the only Gyro controller I own. :/

[٭【Mash】٭]

Thank you for making this guide! :D

[Dollyware]

I have never seen a sweatier gyro player

[ManiaMaster]

Thanks. I managed to make it work somewhat using a dual sense edge.
How can you open the shop when being dead / spectating? That's about the only thing that doesn't work at the moment (and the annoying melee recentering)

[YUNG BOJANGLES]

ty ty ty

[Col. Panic]

I never understood flick stick until today.

[TheTitaniumTitan]

Nice, I also played a bit of deadlock using a controller with gyro aiming. I'm gonna try flickstick soon too, but man this game is nice!