Xbox Series X Controller Does Not Work with Some Games in Windows 10 While on Bluetooth

The Problem

I had been having trouble with my old Xbox 360 wired controllers — as time goes on, the cables can get weakened, damaged, and fail. Since the new Series X controllers were on sale for $50 I figured it would be an opportunity to try it out. After all, I had an extra ASIO Bluetooth adapter lying around gathering dust.

However what I quickly discovered was that the left and right triggers were non-functional in the RPG I was about to play: The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. I was really looking forwarding to completing the game again, but I really wanted to use the speed boost that is built in to the PC version of the game and mapped to the right trigger by default.

What I found was that although the controller was showing up in the Trails configuration tool, it was showing up as a generic controller and when testing re-mapping, no input was detected in the tool.

I verified that the controller was otherwise working properly. Tests using Windows built-in Game Controller settings page showed the inputs being properly detected.

For a while, I was stumped.

Plugging the controller in via USB-C allowed it to be detected properly, but that defeated the point of me purchasing a wireless controller.

The Solution!

I loaded up Halo, and verified that I could use the controller perfectly fine, so the problem must be with the game.

Then I remembered that Steam has a Controller settings as well as support for controllers with their “Big Picture” feature.

Opening up settings, I went to controller and clickecd the “General Controller Settings”

I check-marked Xbox Configuration Support and Xbox Extended Feature Support. Steam prompted that it would need to restart in order to complete the configuration. BE WARNED! This is a system reboot, not a Steam reboot, and it is instant.

After the installation, loaded up Trails configuration tool, validated that the mappings were correct and continued to enjoy my game. Thanks Steam!