Last updated: Wed Feb 18 2026

Setting gamepad triggers as a joystick axis, with Steam Input

This is an odd one, but I have a DualSense 5 and in IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle Of Stalingrad, I wanted to use the analog shoulder triggers as rudder controls. IL-2 is really aimed at people who have joysticks, throttles and actual physical rudder pedals, and it has an odd default setup for gamepads where the left joystick is pitch/roll (fine) and the right joystick up/down axis is set to the rudder. I couldn't figure out how to map it in the game.

Steam Input allows very powerful remapping although it wasn't immediately intuitive to me that it could be done. But, yes, the triggers can be reassigned in Steam Input to the right joystick. I set them to right stick up/down, as this was what IL-2 was expecting for the rudders:

Trigger settings

(ignore the mode shift setting)

Then, I reassigned the right stick to a mouse input, which lets me use it to control the view.

Joystick settings

The end result being that the triggers act as a virtual joystick and the joystick acts as a virtual mouse.

The game actually ends up being very controllable on a DS5, though you'll have to really fiddle with the stick response curves to reduce sensitivity near the centre, and it could use an extra 20 or so buttons.