Although it should not, these steps may misconfigure your other games, as your Steam games will think you have a Steam Controller, instead of whatever you own.

Simply follow the same procedure described in step one below, but unchecking the Configuration support boxes, instead of checking them.

If that's the case, you will need to repeat step one twice every time you play this game, sadly.
(Once to configure it to NNT, and once more to revert the changes)

First of all, you'll want to open Big Picture mode, of all things.

Once there, click in the gear icon:

Then, click on Controller Settings or your regional equivalent:

Finally, check the Configuration Support of your Controller:

I have an XBOX 360 one, (wired, if that's important), so I've checked the "XBOX Controller Support". If you have a DualShock 4, you might want to check the "PS4 Controller Support". If you have a DualShock 3 or any other type of Joystick, you may do one of both things: Try the "Generic Gamepad Configuration Support" or emulating it as a XBOX 360 Controller and check XBOX option.

And that's it. Depending on the model of your controller, you might need some extra settings, but nothing too different than what you would be making for another game anyway.

You may exit Big Picture now, if you like.

Launch the game.

Once you've booted the game, enter the Settings menu:


Choose Controls:


The first line, believe it or not, is a dropdown. Click it and select Controller:


With your Steam Controller - like configuration, the option Controller Layout should be disabled.
Fiddle with the XInput setting.
It should be on for XBOX controllers, but I'm not so sure about other ones.

Back two screens, select the Gamespeak option.

Hold both triggers and Abe should now chant.


If, however, despite him chanting, the alternate Gamespeak seems to not be working, that's because, despite what it says on the screen, it works when you hold down the left trigger. And it only works like that in this screen, in the game itself, the right trigger does the alternate Gamespeak.

But it turns out there's a way to rebind all controls and fix this behaviour:

Back at Steam, there's now an option called Controller Configurations

Above what it looks like on Desktop and Big Picture modes

Once you click it, a Big Picture window will open, and you'll be able to rebind everything in game:
I'd recommend setting the triggers to do their thing when half-pressed as well, and to fix the awkward menu button inversion.