With Valve’s recent unveiling of its new VR headset – the Steam Frame – many have been expecting the company to work on a new first-party title that could push hardware sales. However, in a recent interview with RoadToVR, the company has denied that it is working on a new VR game.
The question was asked due to the company’s history with VR, especially when it launched the Valve Index, and then Half-Life: Alyx just a year later to show off the full capabilities of the virtual reality headset. The company also tends to have a pattern of releasing some new software – even if it is simply a collection of mini-games – whenever it launches a new hardware product.
Aside from Half-Life: Alyx, Valve had also previously showcased its VR hardware with the release of the free title Aperture Hand Lab. The 2022 launch of the Steam Deck was similarly followed up with the release of yet another free title that made use of the handheld system’s capabilities: Aperture Desk Job. The title put players in the shoes of a person with a desk job at Aperture Science, where they could complete objectives and push buttons to then get an idea of the various hardware features of the Steam Deck.
The Steam Frame was unveiled just yesterday, and is set to feature two LCD displays with a resolution of 2160×2160 each and between 72 and 144 Hz refresh rates depending on the game being played. Along with this, the headset also has dual stereo speakers and four high-resolution cameras with infrared LEDs that it uses to track the outside world. Unlike the Valve Index, the Steam Frame will be a completely mobile headset that doesn’t need to be plugged into a PC to play games.
Powering the Steam Frame will be a Snapdragon 8 Series SoC (system on a chip) and 16 GB of RAM. When it comes to storage, the headset will be available in 256 GB and 1 TB configurations, both of which will also come with a microSD slot for further expansion. Valve has stated that the battery life expected from the Steam Frame thanks to its 21.6 Wh lithium-ion battery will be around 40 hours.
It is worth noting that Valve has referred to the Steam Frame as a “streaming-first” device, which means that it is intended to be used alongside hardware that would be capable of running games from Steam. It is capable of running just about any title available on Steam through streaming, and can also pair up with older Steam Controllers, the new Steam Controller, as well as the Steam Deck.
Along with the headset, Valve also unveiled a couple of other new pieces of hardware – the Steam Machine and a new Steam Controller. The Steam Machine will be a gaming PC designed to be effortless to set up and can be used as a full-fledged PC that runs SteamOS – a custom operating system based on Arch Linux. The Steam Controller will pack in a host of new features, including high definition rumble and grip-enabled gyro, among other things.
