Steam Controller’s Easter egg makes it scream when dropped, which is different from your scream when you can’t buy one

Valve’s new Steam Controller apparently has a very silly hidden trick: it can scream when you drop it. No, don’t worry about why, only that it can.

As per a report in VGC, early owners of the newly released Steam Controller have discovered a little Easter egg that causes the device to play the famous Wilhelm Scream when it is dropped while Steam is running in Big Picture mode. The sound does not appear to come from a speaker inside the controller, because the controller does not have one. Instead, it uses the device’s haptic motors to recreate the classic stock scream effect, which is actually more interesting to me than the scream itself.

The Wilhelm Scream is one of cinema’s longest-running audio in-jokes, having appeared across countless films and TV shows, including Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Now, because Valve is Valve, it also appears to live inside a PC controller that yells at you.

Of course, all of this relies on you actually having been able to buy one in the first place. The houses of internet scalpers must sound like Amityville when the post arrives.

There are a couple of conditions. According to VGC’s own testing, the controller needs to be connected to a PC running Steam Big Picture mode, and the sound appears to trigger from the main menu. It also does not happen every single time, meaning this is less of a feature and more of a chaotic little gag waiting to surprise people. I wonder if they honour a warrant when people smash up their controllers trying to make it yelp. I think we all know the answer.

If you are determined to test it, use something soft, like a bed or pillow, unless you fancy explaining to yourself why you broke a piece of hardware for a joke you could have watched on Reddit.

The discovery comes shortly after the new Steam Controller went on sale on May 4, 2026, before demand quickly caused stock issues in several regions. Valve later opened a reservation queue on May 8 in an effort to manage future availability and limit reseller activity, with reservations restricted to one Steam Controller per user.

Valve said that once a user reserves a controller, their place in line is saved, with order emails then sent out in the same order when more stock becomes available. Buyers have 72 hours to complete a purchase once that email arrives.