What’s the difference between “Full controller support” and “Partial controller support?”

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Within Steam’s “Big Picture Mode,” games are shown with a half- or full-controller to signify partial- or full-controller support, respectively.

Partial controller support

However, many of the games listed as “partial controller support” I’ve played for hours with a gamepad, without ever needing to use a mouse or keyboard. These include

  • Vessel
  • Prototype 1+2
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City
  • Beat Hazard
  • LA Noire
  • The Last Remnant
  • Bastion

And many others. So, what exactly determines if a game has full- or only partial-controller support?

Answer

The Big Picture Release Sale page on the steam website has an answer. Here’s a screenshot of the right hand side from that URL:

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And here’s the text for completeness:

Full Controller Support

Games with Full Controller Support will work without a mouse and keyboard on hand, from installation to play and beyond.

Partial Controller Support

Games with Partial Controller Support may require a keyboard and mouse from time to time, during installation or for limited interactions.

So, basically, it would appear that a game with full support never needs input from anything that isn’t a controller, whereas games with partial support can mostly be played with a controller but you’ll probably need a keyboard and/or mouse to do something at some point (which might just be to click ‘OK’ on a window to install DirectX or enable controller in options on the first run or maybe click ‘Play’ in a launcher every run, etc).

Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : BlueRaja – Danny Pflughoeft , Answer Author : Community

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