It’s been multiple years coming, but Valve has finally unveiled Steam Frame, a standalone VR headset capable of streaming flatscreen and PC VR games wirelessly, and playing them natively thanks to its onboard Snadragon SoC. But before you pull out your wallets, Valve is shipping out developer kits first.
Steam Frame doesn’t have a price or release date yet, although Valve says we’ll learn more in “early 2026.” In the meantime, the company is shipping out developer kits to studios looking to optimize their games to work with the new device, which packs a Snapdragon Series 8 Gen 3 chipset capable of running Steam games natively.
The caveat: while you can technically download and play any x86 game (VR or otherwise), a lot of modern PC VR titles are resource intensive. Realistically, individual developers will still need to optimize their games so they can work comfortably on Frame. That, and the supplied controllers doesn’t offer your traditional VR button layout, instead putting it at input parity with Steam Deck and the new Steam Controller.
Valve hasn’t said as much, but this also could mean a ‘Frame Compatible’ badge is coming to Steam games soon that have been confirmed to work at some minimal threshold, similar to how it handles Steam Deck compatibility. In turn, this may force some developers to crunch down their PC VR games more into a compute envelope similar to Quest 3 games.
That said, Valve maintains Frame is primarily designed to stream games from a host PC, or the recently unveiled Steam Machine, which will serve up the highest quality experience thanks to an included Wi-Fi 6E dongle that comes along with the headset.
More Steam Frame Announcement Coverage
Valve Unveils Steam Frame VR headset to Make Your Entire Steam Library Portable: Valve shows off Steam Frame, the standalone headset that can stream and natively play your entire Steam library—with only a few caveats right now.
Hands-on: Steam Frame Reveals Valve’s Modern Vision for VR and Growing Hardware Ambitions: We go hands-on with Valve’s latest and greatest VR headset yet.
Steam Frame’s Price Hasn’t Been Locked in, But Valve Expects it to be ‘cheaper than Index’: No price or release date yet, but Valve implies Steam Frame will be cheaper than $1,000 for the full Index kit.
Valve Says No New First-party VR Game is in Development: Valve launched Half-Life: Alyx (2020) a few months after releasing Index, but no such luck for first-party content on Steam Frame.
Valve is Open to Bringing SteamOS to Third-party VR Headsets: Steam Frame is the first VR headset to run SteamOS, but it may not be the last.
Valve Announces SteamOS Console and New Steam Controller, Designed with Steam Frame Headset in Mind: Find out why Valve’s new SteamOS-running Console and controller will work seamlessly with Steam Frame.
Steam Frame vs. Quest 3 Specs: Better Streaming, Power & Hackability: Quest 3 can do a lot, but can it go toe-to-toe with Steam Frame?
Steam Frame vs. Valve Index Specs: Wireless VR Gameplay That’s Generations Ahead : Valve Index used to be the go-to PC VR headset, but the times have changed.
