How to Launch Apex Legends in Steam for use with Steam Controller

Respawn Entertainment's new Titanfall spinoff Apex Legends is a surprising hit, though some hardcore Titanfall fans may be a bit bitter about it catering to a new fad in gaming and not a true sequel to one of gaming's best shooters ever made. Regardless, Apex Legends can be a lot of fun, and if you have a Steam Controller and you like to use it for action shooters, you might be surprised about how well it works in this game.

Setting up Apex Legends to work in Steam is pretty straightforward. The important thing to note, however, is that you have to have Origin installed, with the game, and make sure it's not running when starting from Steam after connecting it. Knowing that, it's just a few steps to get up and running:


In Origin, Install Apex Legends. After doing so, Disable Origin In-Game Overlay in the Application Settings Menu. ('Origin' Tab in Origin, top left corner)

Disable This. 

Find the Location of your Apex Legends installation. If you install games on your main hard drive, it should be located in Program Files > Origin Games > Apex. Currently, the App exe file should be named 'r5apex' .

Make Note of your Installation Location.

In Steam, open the Games drop-down menu toward the top left, and click on 'Add a non-team game to My Library'. This will allow you to find your Apex Legends installation, and link it accordingly.

Add Non-Steam Game, using file located in the last step. 

 
Finally, Launch the game through Steam in Big Picture mode with Origin completely closed. This will require you to log in to Origin, and once doing so, your game should start normally. I'd recommend playing the training mode while working on settings with your Steam Controller at this point. Once you start training mode, just open the Steam overlay (I have mine set to the guide button) and go to controller settings in the menu. When I last checked, there were already some presets made.

Though training mode in Apex Legends is brief, I was able to use it get my controls narrowed down to where I wanted them in a short amount of time. There are additional ways to connect if this one doesn't work, but this was the way I did it and it seems to be pretty easy and straightforward. I hope this helps someone!

As an added Bonus, I'm adding the graphic card I used to label the game in my steam library, feel free to use it: