The rather good The King is Watching adds Steam Deck & gamepad support

14 Sep 2026 at 8:12 am UTC
By Liam Squires-Hand

The King is Watching from Hypnohead and tinyBuild has a major new update out with Steam Deck and gamepad support.

What is it? The King is Watching is a roguelite kingdom builder. Rule by the power of your royal gaze! Decide between producing resources, training armies, or balancing both, while adapting to unique events every run. Be sure to check out my original thoughts on it!

I liked it a lot before, now perhaps even more so. It has expanded a lot since my original thoughts with mid-run saving and a lot of extra content. Now, it's more accessible than ever with an overhauled UI to bring in Steam Deck and gamepad support.

From their announcement:

"A New Way to Rule

Adapting The King Is Watching for controllers proved to be quite a challenge of its own. While working on the console versions, we also rebuilt the game’s UI to make your experience much better on all platforms. This includes:

• A fully reworked interface designed to be comfortable for both mouse + keyboard and gamepad.
• Rebuilt reward screens.
• Updated fonts for better readability.
• Redesigned tooltips with compact and expanded versions.

To keep the interface readable, some tooltips initially show a shorter description. Press Z to expand them and reveal the full information whenever you need it.

A Note on Steam Deck

The King Is Watching is fully playable on Steam Deck, although you may have noticed that it does not yet carry the Steam Deck Verified badge.

We’re happy with how the new interface has come together, and we’ve recently tested it with members of our community. However, there are still a few isolated places where text may be uncomfortable to read at lower resolutions. We’re reviewing these cases individually with Valve and working to improve them over the coming weeks.

We’ve already received some useful feedback from early testers, and we’d now love to hear from those of you trying the new UI on both PC and Steam Deck. If you encounter any text or interface elements that feel difficult to use, please let us know!"

The most recent trailer is below:

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