The Steam Contrller Will Play the Wilhelm Scream if Dropped

The Steam Controller launched about a week ago (though not many managed to get their hands on one), and it turns out Valve has put a few surprises in it. Apparently, if you drop the controller from high enough, it will play the Wilhelm scream, as can be seen from the video below (with multiple sources confirming it):

Video by RF3D, who appears to be the first to discover this interaction

What is the Wilhelm Scream?

The Wilhelm Scream is a famous stock sound effect used in all sorts of movies and TV shows. Chances are, you've heard it before. It originates in the 1951 movie Distant Drums (clip below), but it wouldn't get its name until the 1953 movie The Charge at Feather River, the third use of the scream, and is named after the character Private Wilhelm.

So, is the Scream public domain? Kiiinda. It was donated to the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1990, and can be used under the CC0 license since 2023, so basically anyone can use it freely. Disclaimer: We're not lawyers, so make sure you don't break some copyright laws if you plan to use it, especially since the original may be "public domain", but any re-recordings or alterations are not.

How did Valve achieve this effect

Sadly, I don't have a Steam Controller to test this, so I can't answer that for certain, but I can make some educated guesses. Triggering the sound is probably done via the gyroscope, playing when it detects a quick movement. Can't know if that's only for vertical movement or if chucking it at a wall will trigger it, so if someone is willing to test this, let us know :).

As for the sound itself, that actually comes from the haptics. The controller vibrates in such a way that it produces the sound of the Wilhelm Scream (which... is kinda how speaker works). I actually had the same thing happen with the PSVR2 controllers when I connected them to my PC (before the Steam VR integration), though I recall it was a lot quieter.

Do you have a Steam Controller? What do you think of it? Did it yell at you for dropping it? Let us know in the comments below!