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Steam Controller's new trick is designed for strategy games

Valve just taught its Steam Controller a trick that not even a PC mouse can do

By default, the haptic touchpads that define Valve's Steam Controller are just thumb-friendly fill-ins for a proper mouse -- but that's not all they can do. Thanks to a new Steam client beta update, the Steam Controller's signature touchapds can now do something now standard PC mouse can: instantly warp your cursor anywhere on the screen at the touch of a thumb.

If you've ever used a Wacom stylus in 1:1 mode, you've got the right idea. If you click the upper left portion of your trackpad, the cursor leaps to a corresponding position on your PC's monitor -- potentially speeding up reaction times in top-down strategy and MOBA games.

Like all Steam Controller features however, there's more to the new "mouse region" mode than meets the eye. The touch area can be reduced to specific zones, ensuring that touch input will go directly to on-screen hotkeys or a game's mini-map for easy navigation. How useful this new feature turns out to be in practice is still up in the air, but it's at least novel as a style of game input that can't be done with a normal mouse, keyboard or gamepad.