How to Connect Your Joy-Cons to Steam

If you’ve always wanted to use your Joy-Cons to play games on Steam, you’re in luck! Five long years after the release of the Nintendo Switch, Steam has finally announced that it is now compatible with Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons.

So if you have a Steam game with multiplayer or you just love it, follow this tutorial to find out how to connect your Joy-Cons to Steam.

Steam finally has Joy-Con support

Nintendo fans have been waiting a long time to play games on Steam with their beloved Joy-Cons. We can only imagine that the delay is due to the complex nature of the Joy-Con. The Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons are best known for splitting a unit into two individual controllers, so you can easily pass one to a friend and play multiplayer games.

Steam now supports the full functionality of the Joy-Cons. This allows them to function exactly as Nintendo intended to play all of your favorite Steam games. This is still new, however, as Steam announced support for Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers on August 4th. As of now, Joy-Con support is still in beta.

How to connect your Joy-Cons to Steam

Since Joy-Con support is still in beta, you must first opt-in to receive beta updates from Steam. This is not an option enabled by default, so you will need to change the setting in Steam. Here’s what you need to do to get beta updates on your Steam client.

1. Open Steam and press the steam Menu in the top left corner.
2. Press settings.
3. A pop-up window will appear with your account information. Under your account information you will find an option labeled Beta Participation.

4. Press changeand choose Steam beta update.
5. Press Start anew, and Steam will update to apply your new settings.

Steam also offers a Big Picture mode to help you navigate the menus as the font on Steam is on the small side. If you prefer this method, check out our guide on Big Picture mode and how to use it.

Also, you need to connect your Joy-Cons to your PC. You can connect your Joy-Cons to Windows or Mac. All you need, of course, are your Joy-Cons and Bluetooth skills. If your PC does not have internal Bluetooth capabilities, you can also use a USB Bluetooth dongle.

To pair your Joy-Cons with your PC, remove the Joy-Cons from your Nintendo Switch and make sure the device is powered off. You should then press the small button on the rail of your Joy-Con to enter pairing mode. Open the Bluetooth settings on your PC and add the Joy-Cons.

Once your Joy-Cons are connected to your PC, you need to connect them to Steam. To do this, open Steam and follow the instructions below:

1. Press the steam Menu in the top left corner.
2. Press settings.
3. A pop-up window will appear – select controllers from the menu on the left side of the pop-up window.

4. Choose Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons from the list of detected controllers.

You can now play any Steam game with your Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons. If you’re looking for a game that can take full advantage of Joy-Cons’ multiplayer capabilities, Brawlhalla or Overcooked are both great options.

Steam also has several tools to help you find the perfect game. So if you can’t find a title you like, this is a great way to find the best games Steam has to offer.

You are now ready to use your Joy-Cons to play games on Steam

While you’ve been able to use Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons on your PC for quite some time, the fact that they’re now compatible with Steam is exciting for many Switch owners with a massive Steam library.

There are a few extra steps to follow to get this set up and working with Steam, but it should only take a few minutes overall and is definitely worth it if you enjoy using the Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons.