So, a little bit of background here. (Or, knowing how verbose I can get when explaining tech, a lot bit of background here...)

Controllers, in general -- regardless of how they connect -- are exposed to the system via a specification called HID (Human Interface Device); this is what keyboards, mice, gamepads, and basically any input device you're likely to run into uses. There are transports for HID over USB, HID over Bluetooth classic, HID over Bluetooth low energy, etc. Custom dongles (including the Steam Controller or the Xbox wireless dongle) will take in some proprietary wireless protocol and output HID over USB.

This is great.

The problem here is that many controllers have their own "brilliant" ideas on how to expose various features. This is why controllers have their own *drivers* on various systems, instead of relying on every single game to know how to speak to them directly: they take in their own dialect of HID and output whatever the local standardized concept of a "controller" is -- XINPUT on Windows, GameController on macOS, any one of what feels like about 6 different game controller libraries on Linux (*insert quiet sobbing noises here*), and so on -- which is what the game looks for.

On some systems, even if you *wanted* to get at the raw HID, you can't; HID devices connected wirelessly on Android or iOS are controlled by the system and exported as their own generic gamepad representation. This is why the Guide button on controllers does Fun Things on Android or iOS, instead of necessarily working the way you want. (It's also why the original Steam Controller has a non-standard Bluetooth protocol, specifically so the guide button will work; Android or iOS can't seize control of a gamepad if they don't recognize it as a HID device!)

The PRACTICAL upshot of this is that instead of streaming raw HID (which you may or may not even have access to, depending on the system), the controllers need to be turned into a generic representation of a gamepad to be streamed back to the host PC. For the sake of everyone's sanity, and also (in some cases) the bandwidth involved.

In like 98% of cases, this'll work out fine because many games are listening to Steam for their controller support, and Steam's handling taking that generic gamepad input and presenting it in a fashion that will work out well. Even if they aren't going through *Steam* for their controller input, that streamed controller can still be exposed as a generic XINPUT device on Windows, a GameController device on macOS, etc., and the game will (probably) just work with it.

UNFORTUNATELY, some games want to do extra stuff with their controller support. Which is cool! But it does have some downsides -- namely, if they're looking for a specific controller to speak directly to it using its own special flavor of HID, they're doing an end-run around all of Steam's input ecosystem.

*pause here for dramatic emphasis*

...and so far as I know, that's exactly what Helldivers 2 does.

My understanding (and this is admittedly without going and booting up the game and looking at what it's doing for certain) is that HD2 takes an end-run around Steam's input support and looks for DualShock/DualSense controllers *directly* as system devices. Which lets them do all sorts of cool Sony-controller-specific stuff like complex haptics and whatnot, but also means that if the controller isn't presented as a physical device right there on the system, they aren't going to see it as a DualShock/DualSense.

So this wouldn't really be "adding DualShock/DualSense support for remote play" but rather "special-casing a Sony controller to be treated differently and exposed directly to the host machine as a virtual HID device rather than actually parsing it for input and exposing it to the Steam input ecosystem, and probably only doing so for certain very specific games so that it doesn't break support for things that *don't* directly support those controllers and expect standard Steam Input or system-specific stuff like XINPUT et al."

Which would be cool, but also a non-trivial amount of work (and potentially, ongoing code maintenance) for a single controller family and an honestly rather limited number of games that want to work with that controller directly instead of going through the system's normal controller APIs.

Conversely, if those games add support for Steam Input, they'll see all those capabilities already exposed...

THAT SAID. If you connect the DualShock/DualSense controller to the Steam Link via USB and use VirtualHere, it *should* actually enumerate as a local USB device and get spotted properly by the game. But sadly, only in wired mode. (There are reasons for this, but I feel like this post is already getting pretty long.)

...yeah okay that was a LOT longer than I realized while I was writing it. Sorry...?

Originally posted by Draken:

Any chance we could see Dual Shock 5 support for remote play? As is, it's super nice to be able to hop on a lower end machine and play a game anywhere, but some games are very fine tuned to use the PS5 controller. As is Steam Link must be avoided for players who are used to PS5 controller support in games like Helldivers 2, which otherwise has a unique control scheme.

Would be a massive bonus if the Steam Deck could also leverage one of it's touchpads to emulate a PS5 controller's touchpad.

the ps5 controller is dual sense, not dual shock series
/nitpick

it is fully supported by steam and steam link hardware for remote play

Originally posted by _I_:

it is fully supported by steam and steam link hardware for remote play

To be fully fair to OP, I think they mean supported for purposes of native in-app DualShock/DualSense support -- and in that sense no, it's not. Mostly because the in-app DualShock/DualSense support in games that use the controller natively is doing an end run around Steam (and the OS representation of "gamepads" for that matter) and looking for the actual controller directly as a device on the operating system.

A Sony controller is definitely supported *as a controller*, and the trackpad will work as a trackpad, rumble will work, etc. But for anything looking *very specifically* for a DualShock or DualSense controller -- actually explicitly enumerated as a device plugged into the system (whether literally or wirelessly) to try to talk to that specific controller type directly -- yeah, no, that won't work for the reasons I detailed above. It's going to show up as a generic gamepad.

But unfortunately, I don't see that changing; it would be rather a lot of work to change that and expose the Sony controllers specifically to the host PC as a raw HID device... plus it would benefit only a few games (since most games don't actually have native support for talking to Sony controllers directly) and there's even the small chance it might potentially *break* the ability to use DualShock/DualSense controllers in some games that *don't* support it directly...

Reading everything posted above, I do get that Packetdancer is spot on with their speculation. Helldivers 2 requires Steam Input be disabled to be able to use the PS5 controller natively. In hindsight, this is probably a better thread to have there instead were I not in agreement.

Sounds to me like I'm left with choosing to get used to the alternative control scheme of a regular controller (more likely) or find an HID forwarding alternative to Steam Input and Remote Play entirely. PS5 controller in this case would be best left home and will take literally any other controller to fight against muscle memory.

This is the "VirtualHere" program that Packetdancer referred to:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/440520/VirtualHere_For_Steam_Link/

It's not a Valve first-party product, despite the branding, but it is a purpose-built tool (and Valve has tacitly endorsed it by including support for it directly into the Steam Link's UI) that sounds like it might do what you need (I haven't used it myself, but I've always been curious about it). Anyway, commenting here so I'll get a notification if you do end up trying it and post results.

For what it's worth, it's never been on sale...the creator did drop the price from $20 to $12 back in 2017 but since then it's only ever inched up in price, so the current $15 is probably the lowest it's ever gonna be (not trying to FOMO you here, I just got curious myself and checked the SteamDB price history ).

virtualhere only works for usb connected devices
you can use the free version of virtualhere for 1 usb device connected to the link hardware to share to the host pc
https://www.virtualhere.com/usb_client_software

it would work fine for the dualsense if its plugged into the link via usb

bur bt on the dualsense doesnt support all of its features
since the ps5 console does not use bt to communicate to the controller, its like xbox and uses their own proprietary signal on the 2.4ghz range

Originally posted by Draken:

Sounds to me like I'm left with choosing to get used to the alternative control scheme of a regular controller (more likely) or find an HID forwarding alternative to Steam Input and Remote Play entirely. PS5 controller in this case would be best left home and will take literally any other controller to fight against muscle memory.

As mentioned, plugging it in via USB and using VirtualHere *should* allow it to work because that will literally just expose the raw USB device endpoints to the host machine as though they were a device physically plugged into the host machine.

Obviously, a wired connection is not *ideal*, but Helldivers 2 should *in theory* spot the device as though it were plugged in locally and thus use it directly.

But yeah... I suspect "get used to the alternative control scheme of a regular controller" is going to be your best option, because I'm not aware of *any* option offhand that'll do quite what you want (e.g. expose the remote device as though it were plugged in locally so the game will think the actual hardware is physically present) short of VirtualHere... and that'll require you to be wired.

I wish I had a better answer for you. :(