I verified that my controller’s rumble worked fine, yet I had no controller rumble in Silksong. I fixed it by forcing Proton 9.0-4 in Silksong’s settings:

  1. Navigate to: Steam Library>Silksong>right-click>Properties>Compatibility
  2. Check “Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool”
  3. Select “Proton 9.0-4” from the dropdown.

It seems that Silksong has inherited the same controller rumble issue as Hollow Knight with the native build [1].

References
  1. Type: Post. Author: “Cobwebblocks”. Publisher: [“ProtonDB”. “Howllow Knight”.]. Published: ~2025-08. Accessed: 2025-09-05T06:41Z. URI: https://www.protondb.com/app/367520#q_spejhJmH.

    No rumble on native version

  • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    61·
    20 hours ago

    I enabled proton 9.0-4 (steamdeck btw), and loaded up my save and let myself take damage a couple times, still no rumble. […] Taking damage triggers it right?

    I tested it just now, and yeah there’s rumble on taking damage. There’s also rumble when hitting an enemy, when striking environmental objects, and binding (for clarity, that is not necessarily an exhaustive list; it’s just what I can recall at the moment).

    Maybe Silksong unfortunately just has poor support for the Steamdeck at the moment. I found this which seems to support that theory:

    [1]

    I’m not sure if it’s possible on the Steamdeck, but have you tried enabling Steam Input?

    References
    1. Type: Application. Title: “Hollow Knight: Silksong Controller Layout”. Publisher: “Steam”. Accessed: 2025-09-05T08:14Z. Location: “Steam”>“Library”>“Hollow Knight: Silksong”>“Controller”>“View controller settings”.
    • Fecundpossum@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      20 hours ago

      Thanks, I’ll try fiddling with it. I’m busy as hell and don’t have much time to play so I haven’t even checked the in game settings to see if it’s enabled. I’ll keep poking around. Thanks for quality reply.