Slay the Spire 2: Best PC Settings and Controls Explained

Slay the Spire 2 has been in Steam Early Access since March 2026, and Mega Crit has spent the months since quietly reworking how you actually control the game. The settings screen covers a lot of ground — keyboard remapping, full controller support, mouse-only play, and a brand new control scheme — but the in-game menus don't explain what any of it does or when it arrived. This guide walks through every setting worth touching, what changed in the most recent patches, and what's still missing.

Because Slay the Spire 2 is still in Early Access, some of what's below lives on an opt-in beta branch rather than the default build everyone gets automatically. We'll flag exactly which options require that switch, and which ones Mega Crit has shipped to everyone. Deck-building roguelikes live and die on how fast you can read the board and commit to a play, so a settings menu that's slow to navigate or a binding that silently drops costs you more than it would in a slower genre — this is worth the ten minutes it takes to set up properly.

01Keyboard-Only Mode: What Changed in Patch v0.110.0

The biggest control change arrived in the July 31, 2026 beta update, patch v0.110.0. Mega Crit's own patch notes confirm the game "added support for keyboard-only mode" and renamed the old "Full Keyboard" option to "Keyboard-Only" in the settings list. That's not just a label swap — the same patch added a "Listening For Input" popup that appears while you're remapping a key or button, so you always know the game registered your press instead of silently timing out.

The patch also cleaned up how the remap screen reads: padding, font sizes, and color got an overhaul, and if a binding is missing entirely, the game now renders a gray hyphen instead of leaving a blank space that looks broken. One important catch — this is a beta-branch patch as of today, so if you're on the default build and don't see "Keyboard-Only" in your settings, that's why.

To actually get onto that branch, right-click Slay the Spire 2 in your Steam library, open Properties, and look for a Betas tab where you can opt into the current beta. Mega Crit has historically promoted beta-branch builds to the default branch after a stabilization period, so if you'd rather wait for Keyboard-Only mode to arrive automatically, that's a reasonable call too — nothing about the base keyboard controls is broken on the default build, it's just the older "Full Keyboard" naming and none of the polish listed above.

02How to Remap Your Keybinds

Slay the Spire 2's input remapping lives under Options, and the same v0.110.0 patch made it noticeably easier to use. If you're playing on an ultrawide or an unusual aspect ratio, the scrollbar in the settings screen was also repositioned in this update so it no longer overlaps the binding list.

The steps below cover a full pass through the settings menu, from switching control schemes to confirming a controller is actually being read through Steam Input. None of it needs to happen in one sitting — you can always come back and adjust a single binding later without redoing the whole list.

How to Set Up Slay the Spire 2's Controls Step by Step

1. 1From the main menu or pause screen, open Options to reach every setting covered in this guide.1 min
2. 2If you've opted into the beta branch, select Keyboard-Only instead of the old Full Keyboard scheme to get the new remap popups and gray-hyphen indicators for empty bindings.1 min
3. 3Click into each binding you want to change and press your preferred key or button; the new Listening For Input popup confirms the game registered it.3 min
4. 4Connect a controller and check the settings menu's explicit Steam Input status line to confirm it's active before relying on custom remaps.2 min
5. 5Enable the Mouse Only Option or the Playable without Timed Input toggle if rapid key presses or reaction windows are a barrier.1 min
6. 6Use the custom volume sliders to balance music against combat cues, and try both DirectX 12 and Vulkan if you notice stutter.2 min

03Setting Up a Controller (Full Support, DualSense Included)

Steam's own store listing confirms Slay the Spire 2 has full controller support, including explicit DualSense controller support and general Steam Input API support — so Sony, Xbox, and most third-party pads should map automatically through Steam's own input layer. The same v0.110.0 patch made it clearer whether that layer is actually active: the settings menu now tells you, in plain language, if Steam Input is turned on for your current controller instead of leaving you to guess from behavior alone.

If a controller feels unresponsive or your remaps aren't sticking, check that status line first. A controller running without Steam Input enabled won't pick up your custom bindings, since those live inside Steam's layer rather than the game's own code.

Worth noting: DualSense support means the PlayStation 5 controller's extra features — like adaptive triggers and the touchpad — are at least recognized at the input level, though Mega Crit's own notes don't call out any Spire-specific haptic effects tied to card plays or combat. Treat DualSense support here as reliable button and stick mapping rather than a promise of bespoke rumble patterns for every relic proc.

04Mouse-Only and No-Timed-Input Accessibility Options

Slay the Spire 2 also ships two accessibility-minded options that are easy to miss because neither is loudly advertised in the UI: a dedicated Mouse Only Option and a "Playable without Timed Input" toggle, both confirmed on Steam's feature list. The mouse-only setting lets you run entire combat encounters — card plays, targeting, relic menus — without ever touching a keyboard or controller, which matters if reach or dexterity makes rapid key presses difficult. The timed-input toggle removes any pressure from reaction-based prompts, turning the handful of moments that would otherwise reward split-second timing into ones you can take at your own pace.

Neither option is the same as a colorblind mode, and as of patch v0.111.0 (the newest beta build, shipped August 14, 2026, which focused on card balance and localization rather than controls), Mega Crit's patch notes still make no mention of a dedicated colorblind filter. Treat that as an open gap rather than a confirmed absence — it's simply not in the notes yet, and the Early Access roadmap could still add one.

If you rely on card-text legibility more than color distinction, the bigger practical fix right now is display scaling rather than a colorblind filter — bumping your in-game resolution down slightly, or your UI scale up, makes relic and card tooltips easier to read on 4K monitors where Slay the Spire 2's original art assets can otherwise render smaller than intended.

05Coordinating Controls for 4-Player Online Co-op

Online co-op for up to four players is one of Slay the Spire 2's headline Early Access features, and it raises its own control questions. Each player's keyboard, mouse, or controller setup is independent — there's no shared-input hotseat mode to worry about — but it's worth having everyone confirm their own remap and Steam Input status before a run starts, since a mid-climb controller dropout is a worse time to discover a binding didn't save. If you're still deciding who to run with and what to expect from your first climb, pair these settings with tips on choosing your starting character before you queue up.

Steam's listing also confirms Steam Cloud and Steam Leaderboards support, so a controller swap mid-session or a reinstall on a different PC shouldn't cost you save progress — your climb and your bindings travel with your Steam account rather than living only on one machine. That matters more in co-op than solo play, since it's common to jump between a desktop and a laptop between sessions with the same group.

Mega Crit's official Early Access trailer, published February 19, 2026, ahead of the game's March launch.

06Display, Audio, and Performance Settings

Mega Crit's official system requirements list a 64-bit Windows 10 install, a dual-core 2.0GHz CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a DirectX 12 or Vulkan-capable GPU with at least 1GB of VRAM as the Early Access minimum — low enough that almost any machine from the last decade should run it. The recommended spec bumps that to a quad-core 3.0GHz CPU, 8GB of RAM, and 2GB of VRAM, which is more about smooth frame pacing during busy card-VFX moments than raw power.

On the audio side, Slay the Spire 2 includes custom volume controls rather than a single master slider, so you can bring music down without losing card-play and combat sound cues — useful if you're running co-op voice chat alongside the game. Save-anytime support means there's no risk in pausing mid-run to adjust any of this; nothing here needs to happen before you start a climb.

Because the game runs on both DirectX 12 and Vulkan, it's worth testing both if you're seeing stutter during card animations or relic-trigger effects — Early Access builds of games that support both APIs don't always perform identically on every GPU driver, and Vulkan support in particular tends to improve from patch to patch rather than being fully tuned on day one. Swapping the renderer is a quick, reversible change to try before assuming your hardware is the bottleneck.

07Steam Deck: What's Confirmed and What's Community Guesswork

Slay the Spire 2 doesn't currently carry an official Steam Deck compatibility rating from Mega Crit, and the developer hasn't published its own recommended Deck settings. Any resolution, frame cap, or TDP numbers you see floating around forums and Discords are community recommendations, not studio guidance — treat them as a starting point to test yourself rather than a verified preset. Given the low official PC requirements above, though, the game's modest minimum specs suggest Deck performance shouldn't be a major obstacle once you dial in your own display and power settings.

A card-based roguelike like this one isn't especially demanding on a GPU — most of the Deck's workload comes from UI redraws and particle effects rather than complex 3D scenes — so if you do experiment, start conservative on power draw and raise it only if you see dropped frames during busy multi-relic turns. Since none of this comes from Mega Crit directly, double-check back on the official Steam news hub for the game periodically in case that changes; a first-party Deck preset would supersede any community numbers immediately.