This duel between two high level Xonotic players is a good example of the diverse dynamics to Xonotic gunplay and movement. Movement gets EXTREMELY fast at points with huge leaps of mobility possible with the blaster, but also there are moments of slow tension and posturing. The movement in Xonotic, especially when you incorporate blaster jumps, is just fun as hell. Bunny hopping and swooping around feels so good compared to the uninspired movement mechanics of most modern shooters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zp5md9iRrU

Ok, so I made an argument for Xonotic as not just another 90s shooter to forget about, but you might have a stereotype in your head that playing a Quake style game with joysticks like the Steam Deck has, would be hell… It is true that if you aren’t familiar with playing console shooters with a gamepad and have only ever used a mouse and keyboard (like pretty much 100% of other arena shooter players lol) you might find it difficult. However, if you have familiarity with playing halo or whatever… all you have to do is to incorporate gyroscope mouse control as a complement to your joystick aiming and once you get comfortable with it you can easily compete in most shooters with average to above average mouse and keyboard players (no autoaim required) though of course you are going to have a big disadvantage with a lower resolution & refresh rate monitor. What then about strafe jumping? Wouldn’t that be annoying pressing the jump button every time or having to hold a jump button (usually one of the face buttons, A on the xbox)?

This is where things start to become almost comical with Xonotic unintentionally being the perfect Steam Deck shooter. Using the below control scheme strafe jumping somehow feels MORE natural with joystick movement control than with a mouse and keyboard, which sounds like an absurd claim given how this genre of shooters, next to the rts genre, is the genre of gaming that the superiority of mouse and keyboard control is considered most dominant. I stand by the claim though, for someone who hasn’t played a Quake like game it is easier to learn to strafe jump fluidly with my steam deck control scheme as you don’t have to climb the un-intuitive learning curve of developing the muscle memory for timing when to press left and right movement keys to keep momentum, you just move the joystick in the direction you want to go and off you swoop into the sunset.

My steam controller mapping for Xonotic is:

Gyro set to always on (set it to toggle on and off with dpad if you want)

The 4 rear buttons, 2 bumpers and 2 joystick clicks are mapped to the various Xonotic weapons (number keys). Arguably superior to toggling weapons on a keyboard once you have muscle memory? You need one more mapping to get all weapons mapped, I suggest a button chord between the left and right bumper as that has worked well for me.

Left joystick is mapped to a 8 Way (Overlap) directional pad with an Overlap Region setting of 4100. The Outer Command Radius is set to 29395 (might need to fiddle with this value for your particular steam deck), and the Outer Ring Command set to spacebar.

That last setting is the real kicker, when you push the movement joystick (left joystick) to its full extent you automatically start strafe jumping which honestly makes strafe jumping feel more intuitive than using a keyboard and mouse. Keeping momentum through complex direction changes is also easy since the joystick is basically already integrates that for you, you just pick a direction and push the joystick. You might need to adjust these values for your particular Steam Deck.

Link to video demo of me playing Xonotic with this control scheme:

https://lostpod.space/w/wm3bjx31XikfRWYtYF7Pjg