Valve rejoins the VR hardware wars with standalone Steam Frame

Six years ago, Valve made its second big virtual reality push, launching the Valve Index headset alongside VR blockbuster Half-Life Alyx. Since then, the company seems to have lost interest in virtual reality gaming, letting competitors like Meta release regular standalone hardware updates as the PC-tethered Index continued to age.

Now, after years of rumors, Valve is finally ready to officially rejoin the VR hardware race. The Steam Frame, set to launch in early 2026, will run both VR and traditional Steam games locally through SteamOS or stream them wirelessly from a local PC.

Powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor with 16 GB of RAM, the Steam Frame sports a 2160 x 2160 resolution display per eye at an “up to 110 degrees” field-of-view and up to 144 Hz. That’s all roughly in line with 2023’s Meta Quest 3, which runs on the slightly less performant Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor. Valve’s new headset will be available in models sporting 256GB and 1TB or internal storage, both with the option for expansion via a microSD card slot. Pricing details have not yet been revealed publicly.

The Steam Frame’s inside-out tracking cameras mean you won’t have to set up the awkward external base stations that were necessary for previous SteamVR headsets (including the Index). But that also means old SteamVR controllers won’t work with the new hardware. Instead, included Steam Frame controllers will track your hand movements, provide haptic feedback, and offer “input parity with a traditional game pad” through the usual buttons and control sticks.

Who needs wires?

For those who want to bring desktop GPU power to their VR experience, the Steam Frame will be able to connect wirelessly to a PC using an included 6 GHz Wi-Fi 6E adapter. That streaming will be enhanced by what Valve is calling “foveated rendering” technology, which sends the highest-resolution video stream to where your eyes are directly focused (as tracked by two internal cameras).

That will help Steam Frame streaming establish a “fast, direct, low-latency link” to the machine, Valve said, though the company has yet to respond to questions about just how much additional wireless latency users can expect. That final number will be important, as every additional millisecond of delay between head movement and pixels seen on the headset display can be extra disorienting when in virtual reality.