Over the past year, we've been repeatedly hearing about a new MMO based on PlayStation's Horizon franchise. This was partially confirmed earlier this year when Sony announced its new partnership with NCSoft. Now, the big game has been revealed as Horizon Steel Frontiers.
Horizon Steel Frontiers is an MMORPG spin-off set in the same universe as Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West. The game will take players to a new area known as the Deadlands, which you can get a preview of in the reveal trailer below:
Interestingly, there has been absolutely no mention of this game coming to PS5, Sony's flagship platform and the console most Horizon fans use. Instead, the game has been announced for PC and mobile, with an emphasis on cross-platform multiplayer. We have to assume that there will be a console version eventually, as having a Horizon game specifically excluded from the PlayStation platform wouldn't make much sense at all.
There is no release date for Horizon Steel Frontiers yet, but we should learn much more about the game in 2026.
KitGuru Says: It certainly looks like a Horizon game, but this trailer doesn't really give us a feel for the multiplayer portion of the game. The lack of PS5 version so far is also incredibly puzzling.
GeForce Now has another big week with the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, which will be available to stream through the cloud service as soon as it launches tomorrow. On top of that, 11 other games have been announced.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 launches tomorrow, the 14th of November. Whether you buy it on Steam, Battle.net, or through the Xbox App (or are subscribed to PC Game Pass), you'll be able to access the game through GeForce Now starting at launch.
The full list of new games joining the GeForce Now library this week includes:
Surviving Mars: Relaunched (New release on Steam, Nov. 10)
Possessor(s) (New release on Steam, Nov. 11)
Rue Valley (New release on Steam, Nov. 11)
Anno 117: Pax Romana (New release on Steam and Ubisoft, Nov. 13, GeForce RTX 5080-ready)
Assetto Corsa Rally (New release on Steam, Nov. 13)
INAZUMA ELEVEN: Victory Road (New release on Steam, Nov. 13)
Songs of Silence (New release on Epic Games Store, Free on Nov. 13)
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (New release on Steam, Battle.net and Xbox, available on PC Game Pass, Nov. 14)
Where Winds Meet (New release on Epic Games Store, Nov. 14)
Megabonk (Steam)
R.E.P.O. (Steam)
RV There Yet? (Steam)
KitGuru Says: What do you think of this week's round of GeForce Now titles?
Here at KitGuru we are all about PC technology and love to talk about clock speeds, cache and outrageous gaming frame rates. Balanced against that, the companies that supply the kit we adore are driven by money so when AMD hosts a Financial Analysts Meeting we tune in, hold our nose and listen carefully.
We live in strange AI times, and just in case you missed the message, the Previous Tiddler AMD currently has 2.3x the market capitalisation of Previous Giant Intel. In our video you can see how their various financial charts head towards the heavens and perhaps you will ask yourself ‘will we ever see a sensibly priced gaming graphics card again?'
AMD also gave the smallest of hints about their Zen 6 and Zen 7 CPU technologies. While we are very keen to see this new hardware we expect Zen 6 Venice EPYC will arrive in 2026 but do not expect the Desktop Zen 6 Olympic Ridge to appear until 2027.
KitGuru Says: AMD is having the time of its life as it rides the wave of AI investment. We just hope the Client side of the company gives a thought to PC gamers.
The Rogue Prince of Persia is a highly slick and satisfying 2D side-scrolling rogue-like metroidvania from Evil Empire – the current team working on the equally-as-excellent Dead Cells. Initially arriving in Early Access back in 2024, the game saw its full 1.0 release last Augustalongside a console launch for both Xbox and PlayStation. Though slightly later than the rest, The Rogue Prince of Persia has now been announced to be coming to the Switch family of devices next month.
Making the surprise announcement, Ubisoft officially confirmed that the excellent Rogue Prince of Persia is coming to the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 before the tail-end of the year – launching on the 15th of December.
Pre-orders for the game have yet to go live and so no official pricing has been announced. That said, assuming it costs the same as it does on other platforms, expect the Switch version to launch at around £25.
The Rogue Prince of Persia is one of the most satisfying rogue-likes in a while, with its seamless parkour mechanics tying into the game’s excellent soundtrack alongside a strong sense of momentum to make for an overall fun experience which is certainly worth trying.
KitGuru says: What do you think of The Rogue Prince of Persia? How does it compare to its contemporaries? What other side-scrollers would you like to see brought over to Switch? Let us know down below.
7 years after the release of the first game, Warhorse Studios re-entered the limelight with the official launch of the much-anticipated Kingdom Come Deliverance II back in February. Seeing near-immediate success with over 1 million copies sold in 24 hours, KCDII has continued to perform well in the months since, having now officially surpassed 4 million copies sold.
“4 million copies of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II sold. We can't thank you enough for helping us reach this incredible milestone. Every one of you – players, fans, modders, creators, and long-time supporters – made this possible. From all of us at Warhorse, thank you for standing by Henry's side and believing in what we do.”
Assuming KCDII has equally as long legs as the first game, we can expect the sequel to hit many more milestones over the coming months and years. It will be interesting to see whether the recently-announced Royal Edition (as well as expected GOTY nominations) will wind up giving Kingdom Come Deliverance II a notable sales boost throughout the remainder of the year.
KitGuru says: Are you one of the 4 million players? Is Kingdom Come Deliverance II your Game of the Year so far? If not, what game is? Let us know down below.
Ahead of Microsoft's next Ignite event, which kicks off in San Francisco (and online) next Tuesday, November 18, the company's president of Windows and Devices shared a message on X about the direction Windows is headed it didn't land particularly well. Just the opposite, it sparked an angry backlash that is a clear indication of AI fatigue.
In
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Valve is releasing a handful of new gaming hardware, including an updated Steam Controller, a standalone VR headset called Steam Frame, and the return of the Steam Machine, this time in a compact cube design that's unofficially been dubbed the GabeCube (a play on words between Gabe Newell and Nintendo's GameCube). The obvious question in light
Corsair takes the established dual-chamber design and slices it further apart into a triple-chamber layout with the Air 5400 RS-R ARGB, thermally separating the CPU cooling from the rest of the system. On top of that, the Air 5400 series aims to woo enthusiasts with its dual curved glass panels and funky air shrouds.
Gran Turismo 7 has received countless consistent free updates ever since the racing title first launched back in 2022, adding new vehicles; tracks; expanded modes; enemy AI and much more. While the free updates are set to continue with the upcoming Spec III patch, Polyphony Digital has now announced its first paid Gran Turismo 7 ‘Power Pack’ DLC.
Making the announcement during Sony’s most recent Japan-focused State of Play, Polyphony Digital confirmed that Gran Turismo 7 will be getting its first paid DLC in the form of the ‘Power Pack’.
50 new races across 20 themed categories “inspired by global automotive and motorsport traditions”
24-hour endurance racing “for players who crave the ultimate test of skill and stamina”
Full race weekends where you can “practice, qualify, and compete in the main event for a true racing simulation”
Gran Turismo Sophy 3.0 AI “for intense, tail-to-nose battles that push your limits”
5,000,000 in-game Credits
While the addition of 50 new races in particular is welcome to see for all those who enjoy GT for its single player ‘campaign’ experience, the limiting of Sophy AI 3.0 to those with the DLC is odd.
Depending on how complex this new version of Sophy is, PlayStation / Polyphony Digital may be able to justify its inclusion as part of the paid DLC. We will have to wait and see when the free Spec III update – and the Power Pack DLC – releases next month.
KitGuru says: What did you think of the State of Play? Do you welcome paid DLC coming to GT7? Should Sophy AI 3.0 be part of the free update instead? Let us know your thoughts down below.
It has been some time since we last looked at a power supply from Fractal, so today we check out one of their latest Ion 3 Gold units. The new range of Ion 3 power supplies are available in black (with the 1000W model also available in white) and are fully modular, are ATX 3.1 compatible, incorporate Japanese capacitors and are protected with a full 10-year warranty. The series is also 80 Plus Gold certified, though Fractal don't appear to be working with Cybenetics for any certification which is an oversight in my opinion as Cybenetics is the superior testing platform.
Fractal are releasing three units in this new range of power supplies, a 750W, an 850W and a 1000W. Scan have listed them for pre-order over HERE. UK release date is said to be sometime in December 2025.
750W Ion 3 = £99.98 inc. VAT.
850W Ion 3 = £109.99 inc. VAT
1000W Ion 3 = £139.39 inc. VAT (white and black options are the same price).
Fractal are working with Seasonic as the OEM for the new Ion 3 Gold series.
Key features:
ATX 3.1 compatible for next-generation components, supporting ATX 3.0 power excursion to ensure stability with upcoming graphics cards.
16-pin PCIe Gen5 12V-2×6 600W cable provides native support for modern graphics cards. Shortened sense pins improve reliability and powers down the GPU
if the connection comes loose.
80PLUS Gold certification delivers high efficiency, with reduced energy use and heat generation thanks to optimized power delivery.
Fully modular design simplifies installation with reduced clutter inside the system.
Zero RPM semi-passive mode keeps the fan off until 30% load and allows silent operation under lighter loads.
Fractal UltraFlex cables provide superior flexibility for clean cable management.
Unsleeved 24-pin ATX motherboard cable improves handling and routing.
140 mm Fractal Momentum fan with fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) ensures lower noise, cooler operation, and a longer lifespan.
Premium 105° Japanese capacitors provide maximum reliability and durability.
10-year warranty and full electrical protection suite offer long-term peace of mind.
Helldivers II is easily one of PlayStation’s biggest success stories in recent years, with the co-op PvE shooter selling over 15 million copies within its first year on the market across PS5 and PC. The game then received a major boost in eyes following its surprise arrival on Xbox in late August of this year. According to Sony, this most recent launch has helped the game see “a significant increase in sales of the title year-on-year.”
As part of Sony’s latest fiscal earnings report (transcribed by WindowsCentral), the console maker confirmed that the launch of Helldivers II on Xbox has been a success, saying:
“Helldivers 2, which was also released for Xbox in August of this year, is doing extremely well, not only attracting new users on Xbox, but also seeing increased engagement from existing users on PS5 and PC. This resulted in a significant increase in sales of the title year-on-year.”
Of course, it is worth noting that Arrowhead Game Studios have been heavily supporting Helldivers II since its launch on PS5 and PC last year, adding all sorts from new forms of progression to new enemy types; weapons; upgrades and much more – leading to bumps in engagement even before the game’s arrival on Microsoft's console.
All that said, it is safe to say that Sony’s experiment in bringing Helldivers II to Xbox seems to have paid off handsomely. It will be interesting to see where Sony and Arrowhead go from here.
KitGuru says: Did you pick up Helldivers II on Xbox? Was it worth the wait? What other PlayStation games do you hope to see Sony bring over? Let us know down below.
Valve is launching three new Steam Hardware projects in 2026, and two of them are quite familiar. The Steam Frame is the newest of the bunch, intended as a lower cost alternative to the ultra-premium Valve Index, joining the likes of Meta Quest and other standalone VR headsets, powered by Snapdragon silicon, but now with SteamOS and a highly
During its State of Play Japan conference, Sony surprise-announced new PlayStation hardware—a PlayStation Gaming Monitor, specifically, which also includes a DualSense charging hook. While we don't know how much it will cost yet, the pricing of Sony's existing lineup of InZone gaming monitors raised a few eyebrows here in the HotHardware newsroom.
Valve confirmed that it's not currently working on a new first-party VR game.
Today saw Valve officially announce Steam Frame, a “streaming-first” standalone VR headset that's launching in “early 2026”. While the company is aiming to make your existing Steam library more valuable, this naturally raised the question: following 2020's Half-Life: Alyx, is Valve developing new VR games for the headset?
Speaking to UploadVR during our recent visit, Valve told us that it's “not talking about content today.” However, Road to VR says that "a member of the Steam Frame team" denied that it has any VR content in development, offering what the publication described as a "simple and definitive no".
While Alyx wasn't a launch title for the Valve Index headset, the groundbreaking title arrived less than a year after launch. Before that, Valve had previously confirmed it was developing a flagship VR game, whereas Steam Frame will seemingly rely on existing and third-party titles.
As for Steam Frame itself, the newly announced headset uses a lightweight modular design and runs a VR version of Valve's SteamOS, which it previously used with Steam Deck. This also uses an updated version of the Proton compatibility layer, meaning it can run almost any Linux, Windows, and Android games.
FromSoftware finally delivered the online co-op experience fans had been yearning for with the release of Elden Ring Nightreign earlier this year. And the game is about to get even better with the newly announced DLC, The Forsaken Hollows, which will bring new Nightfarers, new enemies to battle and a Shifting Earth.
The Shifting Earth is
If you've spent money on games from Steam, Valve's aim with Steam Frame is to make that library more valuable.
50 percent of Steam users still run their games at 1080p, according to the latest Steam Hardware Survey. How many of those gamers have never seen a monitor refreshing faster than 60Hz? Or a modern VR display running its content at 120Hz?
Ignoring the subset of people, mainly gamers, who have a concept of the difference between 30Hz and 60Hz, how many people worldwide have never seen motion displayed on a screen faster than 60Hz?
In 2026, Valve will follow the Steam Deck by starting to sell its most portable standalone PC ever. You wear Steam Frame on your face with experimental display support up to 144Hz.
What Is Steam Frame?
Steam Frame and controllers, image provided by Valve.
Steam Frame is a VR headset, personal computer, and probably a whole lot of other things once its community verifies Valve's claims that you can swap out the operating system or plug in other accessories into its high-speed nose port.
"We don't block anyone from doing what they want to with their device," Valve's Lawrence Yang said.
Developers and Steam Frame buyers can use high frame rates in different ways, but at its core this headset features a stereoscopic portable display as its compute unit. There's dedicated hardware to enable high quality streaming from nearby PCs also running Steam and, while in standalone mode, you can still get something like a 1440p picture on what feels like a 70-inch virtual display running at 90, 120 or potentially 144Hz.
UploadVR played Hades 2 at Valve HQ in a demo that conveyed the power of having a virtual display comfortably floating anywhere with smoothly animated content displaying in the Steam Frame at rates usually only associated with high end gaming monitors tethered to desks. Arms at your sides with a controller in each hand, Valve says Steam Frame works in the dark too.
Steam Frame, Steam Machine, Steam Controller, and Steam Deck, image supplied by Valve
"All of these games can support arbitrary resolutions and refresh rates," Valve's Jeremy Selan said during our briefing. "We're thinking about it as very much a per-game setting. Some games just by the nature of the play want to be very high refresh and more modest res. When we were showing you Hades, it was at 1440p at 90 Hertz."
Hades remains a strong memory from my time in Steam Frame at Valve headquarters because of that high frame rate, and it bears calling out amid all our coverage that having some “VR and non-VR” games running at an extremely high frame rate – even reclined on a couch or bed – will be an eye-opening experience for many people, including Steam Deck owners.
"While it is a wireless streaming first headset," Yang told UploadVR. "We did want you to be able to play your Steam library when you're not next to your PC or laptop, so we made Steam Frame a PC by itself. It has an ARM chip that's running SteamOS."
Could playing existing games at high frame rates in a lightweight standalone headset make it hard to go back to 60 or 30 fps screens entirely?
For long-time UploadVR readers as well as newbies learning about the market for the first time, it’s important we convey just how meaningful this feature alone might be in daily use as Valve works to optimize the system and rally developers into supporting new surfaces for their games on Steam.
Steam Frame, image supplied by Valve
During our time with Valve I dug into questions of openness, tracing the path from the Vive and wired PC VR-only Index to the standalone Steam Frame with wireless streaming.
“This is a Linux OS, this is SteamOS brought to ARM. If there are other operating systems, for instance, that support these chip sets, you're welcome to do so,” Selan said. “You'd at that point be responsible for the tracking stack and everything else, but very much in the spirit of Steam Deck, this is your device, your computer, you own it, you can mod it and extend it in any way.”
Steam Input Alignment
Steam Frame Controllers that ship with Steam Frame.
Valve looks to align controller input in Steam Frame with traditional gamepad and Steam Deck, with backward compatibility to existing VR content on both Quest and PC. That’s why there are two index buttons instead of one on each controller, matching the shoulder and trigger buttons on traditional gamepads.
Valve’s Jeff Leinbaugh introduced the controllers by saying their design is “going along with all the goals of the headset and a lot of our hardware. We want this device to work with all of your VR games but also all of your non-VR games and just make your whole Steam catalog more valuable, deliver you a bunch of value no matter what you happen to be playing.”
For flat games, the new Steam Controller can be used with Steam Frame instead of the tracked controllers.
What Is Steam Frame's Price?
"It's a premium headset, but we're really aiming to be cheaper than Index," Selan said. "While I said we're gonna be premium, we're still trying to be very cost considerate."
We're due for months of debate over the definition of "cheaper than Index" not due to any fault of Valve, but because that's not a comparison many people know how to make conceptually.
Valve Index was $999 for a room-scale VR kit plus a user-provided Windows PC to drive it. Steam Frame is a standalone headset from Valve. Many people, in their heads, will be comparing the price of a component to a computer.
Trade-Offs: Wi-Fi & Display
Steam Frame and controllers.
Steam Frame's creators acknowledge trade-offs in its design, like the lack of HDR or a true-black display technology like the Steam Deck OLED. My colleague David Heaney asked about the potential of a higher end headset one day exchanging the LCD in its design for OLED or HDR.
"I think about HDR every day," Selan said.
Where Apple brings to Vision Pro its iPad app and Apple TV content libraries as the cornerstone of its leap into VR — while building new Apple Immersive Video content along the way — Valve representatives declined to talk about content made for Steam Frame by their developers.
Valve is “optimistic” about bringing Half-Life: Alyx to standalone at some point. Until then, that's what the streaming focus is about. The story now from Valve is about putting its hardware in end-to-end wireless control of Steam games in more places while improving frame rates, latency and resolution wherever possible along the way.
What makes good Apple Immersive Video so powerful is the amount of photons hitting camera sensors and then reconstructed for your view on a virtual display at a high resolution and frame rate. Almost nobody notices when an iPad app that typically runs at 30 fps on a physical tablet also runs at 30 fps on a virtual display, but you’ll jump when something comes at you in 180-degree video delivered in Apple Immersive Video at Apple Vision Pro’s frame rates and quality levels. You’ll have to stay tuned for our review of the M5 Vision Pro, released in 2025, to see if that specification bump from the M2 of 2024 has a meaningful effect on frame rates across the broader Apple software ecosystem. Still, you should keep some of this in mind as Valve seeks to make an impact with new hardware centered on Steam games in 2026.
"We ask ourselves at Valve, what can we do well?" Selan said. "We keep coming back to the Steam games that you already own."
Developer Feedback & Community
Valve is looking to its developer and user communities to do the lifting here in centering Steam in the market for VR games running on ARM. Developer applications for Steam Frame kits are open today.
The market for VR content on ARM is currently dominated by Quest, but many top apps have ports of their Android-based software packages on other storefronts, like those from Pico or HTC. As of last month, this is a market also being formally chased by Android XR for the Google Play Store.
"The same way Steam OS has been fully expanded and extended by the community. Our hope is to do that same thing for VR. So this would be considered an open PC," Selan said. "This would be like the biggest open VR headset device, and like everyone can richly work together to make that better and better."
The Best Headset Demo Ever?
Steam Frame's soft-back battery pack slips into the facial interface for tight packing.
Valve didn't show experiences like The Lab with mini games like Longbow from 2016, or even Beat Saber from 2018, that might've indicated tracking regressions compared with the Valve Index or HTC Vive laser base stations surrounding a play area. We didn't even see SteamVR Home, just a compositing system for content in SteamOS on ARM.
Apple planted its flag in VR hardware as the future of personal computing with its first public demo of Vision Pro in the middle of 2023, with software showing full control over photos, videos, FaceTime and more. Plenty of software Apple is known for, like Final Cut Pro and GarageBand, still isn't present in its headset from 2025.
Valve plants a flag for all of Steam in VR with its first public demo of Steam Frame near the end of 2025. There's a long path of optimization ahead to make Steam games of all kinds run well with Valve's new headset and input.
Pulling up a Linux desktop in VR for the first time in a headset as lightweight as Steam Frame conveys something about this medium and its steadfast believers that I felt in awe to see with my own eyes. You can use whatever terminology you want to describe this medium, but progress never stops.
We'll be watching Valve's optimization developments closely across all platforms.
Closed vs. Open
The latest generation of VR headsets sees us logging into Samsung, Google, Steam, Apple or Meta accounts to access large quantities of digital content. That doesn't feel truly "open", even if along the way we're getting some unlocked bootloaders and the promise of OS-swapping.
Earlier this year, I did the absurd thing of purchasing a 2 terabyte microSD card which I stuck into my Steam Deck. I've installed everything I could possibly want onto it, including 100s of gigabytes of content I don't expect to work properly in Deck mode ever. Now, instead of waiting hours downloading a 100 gigabyte game from Valve's network to a freshly reformatted PC, I can simply transfer it locally right from the Deck.
I had that card with me at Valve HQ because I had another hope in putting my Steam library on that card. They warned "no screwdrivers" ahead of our demos and said not to take anything apart. So, while deeply curious, I didn't take the step of sticking my card into the headsets there and trying to log myself into Steam Frame.
That said, I look forward to the day I can pop that card out of my Deck and into a Steam Frame and see what experiences work smoothly as I click play on absolutely everything. Valve told us they're planning to distribute review units sometime early in 2026.
Near the end of my time at Valve HQ in 2025, six years after I first visited their offices in 2019, I asked them to frame for me the difference between a computer that's "closed" and one that's "open."
Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais responded.
"If folks on an experience that's more curated and more closed off are having a good experience, that's fine. But in general, we see that people that are trying to experience a variety of games in different ways, there's a bunch of stuff that they might wanna do that we haven't thought of. And what we always observe is that there's a ton of value that is usually distributed laterally in the community, where users between themselves will share stuff that will make the experience better. And that is only possible in an open platform. Like we don't want all the value in a platform like that to be flowing up and down through us, and for us to be determining what's a good experience or not on behalf of all those users that might have different opinions and different aspirations."
"So it's really important for us to keep that open because it creates those kinds of effects that eventually leads to a better experience. Also, anyone that's using this stuff can also go and contribute patches and develop on it. And so we're excited to be able to have stuff get even better because people now want to contribute to it."
"In fact, a lot of the developers that are working on open source have started because they were users and they just want to improve a specific aspect and they go deep into it."
"The lines between user and developer has always been very blurry for us. We've come from a world where some of our most popular game properties actually started out as mods. And modding on PC was always like a strong thing that we were always trying to support. Because so many good concepts and new game genres, you know, free to play, mobile, all that stuff came through mods, initially. If you look at the history of video games, different genres, different ways to experience games, different peripherals, a lot of it came from PC because PC was an open platform where different companies could innovate in different ways, but also users could mod. People that created closed off platforms based on some of those concepts, they're gonna take some of those concepts and kind of freeze them in time. And then PC's gonna keep moving forward because it's open and we have all this value. And we are just applying PC to VR. So it's nothing new for us. We've always applied PC to VR. It's just some folks have opted to like branch it off in different directions, but I think we're just doing the same thing as we've always been doing."
From Valve Index To Steam Frame
In 2019, when I first tried the Index, a Valve representative told me "this is going to ruin you" before I tried Beat Saber running at 144Hz.
Beat Saber was later acquired by Facebook that same year and, sure, at some point in Steam Frame I'd like to see how Meta's cornerstone title performs in terms of tracking and frame rate.
In retrospect, Beat Saber at 144Hz did ruin me in the sense that, when I invited Index into my home, I don't think I really experienced those frame rates in any substantial way running an NVIDIA RTX 2080 for most of the lifetime of the headset.
In Steam Frame, Valve manages end-to-end controller inputs and frame delivery not just in the standalone mode, but when streaming from PCs like Steam Machine too. Even a few minutes playing your favorite game with a few milliseconds less lag in input, or higher frame rates visually, will feel like invisible magic while meaningfully adding value to your day. Ultimately, that's exactly why Valve is making Steam Frame.
UploadVR's Ian Hamilton and David Heaney went hands-on with Steam Frame at Valve HQ.
If you missed it, Valve just officially announced Steam Frame, a "streaming-first" standalone VR headset launching in "early 2026".
Steam Frame has a lightweight modular design and runs a VR version of Valve's SteamOS, the Linux-based operating system used in Steam Deck. With an evolved version of the Proton compatibility layer it can run almost any Linux, Windows, and Android game, including SteamVR games. Many titles won't perform well on the mobile chipset, though, so Steam Frame has a wireless dongle in the box to leverage the power of your gaming PC – hence Valve's "streaming-first" positioning.
The headset does not require or support base stations. It tracks itself and its included controllers using four onboard greyscale tracking cameras, two of which can be used for monochrome passthrough, and it also has eye tracking for foveated streaming.
Steam Frame will replace Valve Index on the market, which the company confirmed to UploadVR is no longer in production, and joins Valve's "family" of hardware products, which will also soon include a Steam Machine consolized PC and a new Steam Controller.
You can find a full rundown of the design, features, and specifications of Steam Frame in our news article here. This article describes our impressions of using the headset at Valve HQ, where we were invited to a hardware briefing that included hands-on time with the new Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and the Steam Frame headset.
Ian's time with Steam Frame was mostly spent in standalone titles on SteamOS, while David's time was entirely in Half-Life: Alyx streamed from a nearby gaming PC using the wireless adapter included in the Steam Frame box. Here's what they thought of their time with Steam Frame.
Ian's Impressions: Standalone Use
In quick succession I played Ghost Town, Walkabout, Moss 2, and Gorn 2 in the lightweight standalone SteamOS headset, and I also briefly tried some Half-Life: Alyx streaming from a nearby Windows PC.
Ghost Town is one of the best VR games of the year and Valve says I played the PC VR version – the version made for x86 processors – completely in standalone through a compatibility layer. Walkabout Mini Golf's build was more fully featured than the one shown during the demo day at Samsung a couple weeks earlier, allowing me to putt with one controller in full VR joined by an iPhone player logged into the same room code via the Pocket Edition of the game. I enjoyed waving at Quill in Moss 2 and, in Gorn 2, I punched barbarians with my fists using the analog sticks to move myself out of the way of their attempts to hit me. Playing mostly seated, they all worked smoothly with Steam Frame running as a standalone personal computer – no streaming from a PC.
Photo by UploadVR at Valve HQ.
Portal 2 ran on a large virtual display, as if on a giant Steam Deck, with what seemed like a very high frame rate. That was a really nice, responsive experience. So was stretching out my farm in Stardew Valley to keep an eye on most of the farm at once. Both of these flat games are pretty powerful to see running well directly on such a lightweight device alongside any number of standalone VR games.
I opened the Linux desktop, went to Chrome and voice searched for the No Time For Caution scene from Interstellar on YouTube. I kicked off my shoes at Valve HQ (apologizing for doing so) and stretched out horizontally on a couch. I propped up a pillow behind my head and left the controllers on my stomach with the screen stretched across the sky. Matt Damon said "there is a moment" and I watched him blast into the gray of space with my controller drifting off with him.
Regressions in controller tracking compared with Valve Index and its SteamVR 2.0 base stations may grate against developers and players who’ve come to expect rock-solid tracking from Steam-based laser systems outside the play area. I tried nothing like Longbow, for example, from Valve's original Lab experience, nor something with lots of physics objects like Boneworks, nor anything with fast motion like Beat Saber.
Steam Frame controller (photo by UploadVR at Valve HQ).
With the controller in my hand, my index finger had some difficulty reaching both the index shoulder and trigger buttons while also keeping my middle finger on the grip button. Grip straps should be sold optionally at launch and there are capacitive sensors along the base of the controller intended to see when the 4th and 5th fingers release. I saw it in action in Half-Life: Alyx, with Alyx’s pinky and ring finger occasionally moving as I released my grip from that part of the controller. It didn’t seem super responsive, but it also wasn't strapped to my hand and the grips of the Index controllers were never particularly responsive either. The input from the 4th and 5th digits hasn’t proved necessary to game developers for half a decade, so I'm not too worried about it being well supported here. Still, we will closely watch what developers say about their feedback on the Steam Frame controllers.
Steam Frame with a non-shipping clear prototype of the modular compute unit to show the components at right (photo by UploadVR at Valve HQ).
IPD adjustment is done via a wheel on the top of the headset and, after I got it set right, I largely forgot the headset's weight as it disappeared split between the rear and front in a remarkable feat of engineering. There’s no battery up front but no adjustment knob at the back — you pull on the soft straps at the side to adjust fitting — with the dual-cell thin battery on the back held behind a cushy foam. In hand, the compute unit feels a bit like I imagine a mainline Apple Vision might, with the rear component of Valve's headset able to collapse inside of the front for more compact travel than any other headset I'd want to use.
The back half of the Steam Frame can fit inside of the facial interface for transport, making this the most compact design for travel (photo by UploadVR at Valve HQ).
On head, Steam Frame is a relief compared to all headsets with a battery hanging on the front of your face. The absence of the battery there is easily the most impactful feature of its design. Even though Google and Samsung hang the battery in a pack in Galaxy XR like Vision Pro, I found Steam Frame’s cushy back-mounted battery design to be an enormous relief particularly after spending four days in Android XR’s first headset.
Of course, that’s only after a few minutes watching a movie reclined on a couch while missing OLED displays every second, but Steam Frame feels like glasses or perhaps even a sleep mask because of how well spread out its weight feels across the head.
A Steam Frame Wireless Adapter comes in the box with each headset intended to manage the link to a nearby PC, including to the planned Steam Machine. We’ll be looking for the Steam Frame-verified label on VR games for Steam in the year ahead, and looking to test what it means to truly pump Steam throughout the home with dedicated Valve-managed wireless connections. There’s a lot of space for developers to play here in SteamOS, jumping off a Steam Machine or Deck and into a Frame.
Steam Frame next to the Steam Machine with e-paper faceplate (photo by UploadVR at Valve HQ).
Valve has a lot to accomplish here during a turbulent time in global relations and specifics like cost and availability aren’t finalized. Valve representatives think they can get Half-Life: Alyx running performant in standalone, but they’re not promising it yet and it’s clear there’s still a lot for them to do.
David's Impressions: Wireless PC VR
My two Steam Frame demo sessions involved streaming Half-Life: Alyx from a nearby gaming PC that had the headset's included wireless adapter connected to a USB port.
A hands-on demo can never definitively reveal whether a headset is comfortable to wear for hours, but even in the relatively short time I used Steam Frame it felt significantly lighter and less burdensome than any other fully-featured standalone headset. The visor itself weighs just 185 grams, a remarkable achievement, and the entire unit including the rear battery just 440 grams, meaning the weight is incredibly well distributed across your head.
Further, the material Valve is using for the facial interface and rear padding is an evolved version of the ultra-snug fabric used in the Index, which even six years and dozens of aftermarket accessories for other headsets later, I still find feels the softest on my face.
While I'm cautious about making sweeping conclusions until I have the headset in my home, my initial impression is that Steam Frame is the most comfortable VR headset yet, for my face at least.
David wearing Steam Frame at Valve HQ.
When it comes to making Steam Frame an ideal headset for connecting to SteamVR on your PC, Valve is using a combination of both hardware and software cleverness to refine the compressed wireless streaming experience.
Steam Frame has two separate wireless radios. One is used as a client, connecting to your home Wi-Fi network on the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band for the general internet connection of SteamOS. The other is for a 6GHz Wi-Fi 6E hotspot, created by the headset, that SteamVR on your PC automatically connects to via the USB adapter included in the box. It's a dedicated point-to-point connection between Steam Frame and your PC.
This gives Valve precise firmware-level control over the entire network stack for wireless PC VR, and eliminates the problems you might experience using other standalone headsets for this, such as being bottlenecked by a router that's either too far away, blocked by too many walls, congested by other traffic, or just supplied by your ISP because it was cheap, not because it's any good.
The other feature Valve has implemented to make the wireless PC VR experience as good as it can possibly be is foveated streaming. Steam Frame has built-in eye tracking, and when you're using PC VR it's always used to encode the video stream in higher resolution where you're currently looking.
Steam Frame has the wireless adapter in the box (photo credit UploadVR).
The result of this hardware and software effort, in my demos, was a relatively high detail and stable image that felt as if it could have been arriving from a DisplayPort cable. There were no visible compression artifacts, nor was there perceptible latency.
The exception to this stability was that in the second demo room, I saw a frame skip issue at a regular interval. Asking Valve's staffers about this, they debugged it as an unexplained frame spike on the Windows PC side, showing me the SteamVR performance graph on the PC monitor so I could visually confirm this. The issue didn't occur in the first demo room, and is unlikely to be inherent to the product.
Steam Frame's pancake lenses made the image look clear and sharp throughout, with a similar feeling to Quest 3's lenses (including the wide eyebox) but with a slightly taller field of view, and that increased vertical field of view meaningfully contributed to an increased feeling of immersion. There did appear to be some minor pupil swim, however, meaning the geometric stability of the scene ever so slightly shifted as I panned my head.
I asked Valve's Jeremy Selan about the idea of using dynamic distortion correction, having the eye tracking continuously update the lens distortion coefficients, and he told me that they "haven't found the need" but "could if we wanted to". It probably isn't a big enough issue for most people to notice or care.
Steam Frame's lenses (image by UploadVR at Valve HQ).
The only real problem with the image I saw was its poor contrast, given Valve's description of Steam Frame as a "premium headset".
If you currently use an OLED or micro-OLED headset for PC VR, or even LCDs with Mini-LED backlighting, Steam Frame's contrast would be a huge downgrade. Valve is using regular 2160×2160 LCD panels, with no local dimming of any kind, and in the dark sewers of City 17 I saw the same detail crunch I see with any other plain LCD headset.
To be clear, this is the contrast experience that the majority of SteamVR users have today. But much of this usage comes from headsets that were bought for around $300. Valve isn't yet giving a price for Steam Frame, but said it's aiming to sell it for less than the $1000 Index full-kit. To what degree the regular LCD panels are an acceptable tradeoff will depend on exactly where Steam Frame's price lands.
When it comes to the controllers, tracking seemed flawless in my time, and while on one headset there was a minor positional jitter, on the other it was rock solid. Steam Frame Controllers have 18 IR LEDs, compared to the 8 on Meta's Touch Plus controllers, and this seemed to result in better occlusion resistance at extreme angles.
Photo by UploadVR at Valve HQ.
Overall, Steam Frame felt like a device optimized to be the ideal wireless PC VR experience but without being unaffordable for too many people. It's incredibly comfortable, its wireless adapter bypasses the common issues of home Wi-Fi networks, and its lenses are sharp and clear. It lacks the ultra-high-detail and rich contrast of 4K micro-OLED headsets, but it's also set to lack their multi-thousand-dollar price tag.
I suspect Steam Frame could be the headset to finally convince many tethered PC VR diehards to make the leap to wireless, and I'm eager to spend more time with the headset to see how it performs over multi-hour sessions in a real home environment.
Valve just officially announced Steam Frame, a "streaming-first" standalone VR headset launching in "early 2026".
Steam Frame has a lightweight modular design and runs a VR version of Valve's SteamOS, the Linux-based operating system used in Steam Deck. With an evolved version of the Proton compatibility layer it can run almost any Linux, Windows, and Android game, including SteamVR games. Many titles won't perform well on the mobile chipset, though, so Steam Frame has a wireless dongle in the box to leverage the power of your gaming PC – hence Valve's "streaming-first" positioning.
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The headset does not require or support base stations. It tracks itself and its included controllers using four onboard grayscale tracking cameras, two of which can be used for monochrome passthrough, and it also has eye tracking for foveated streaming.
Steam Frame will replace Valve Index on the market, which the company confirmed to UploadVR is no longer in production, and joins Valve's "family" of hardware products, which will also soon include a Steam Machine consolized PC and a new Steam Controller.
My colleague Ian Hamilton and I went hands-on with Steam Frame at Valve HQ, and you can read our impressions here. This article, on the other hand, provides a full rundown of the design, specifications, and features of Steam Frame, based on the information provided to us by Valve.
Lightweight Modular Design
Steam Frame will come with a replaceable battery strap, with built-in dual driver speakers and a 21.6 Wh rear battery.
The strap itself is fabric and the rear battery unit has soft padding, meaning it can "collapse" against the lenses for portability and naturally deform when your head is resting on a chair, sofa, or bed.
Steam Frame and the Steam Frame Controllers (image from Valve).
The core frontbox of Steam Frame weighs just 185 grams, Valve says, while the entire system with the default included facial interface, speakers, strap, and rear battery weighs 440 grams.
That makes Steam Frame the lightest fully-featured standalone VR headset to date.
The rear battery of Steam Frame's included default strap (image from Valve).
Steam Frame is a modular system, and Valve will make the CAD and electrical specifications available to third parties to build custom facial interfaces and headstraps. Someone could, for example, build a rigid strap with an open interface, or a fully soft strap with a tethered battery. Expect a range of accessories.
2K LCDs & Pancake Lenses
Steam Frame features dual 2160×2160 LCD panels, meaning it has twice as many pixels as the Valve Index and roughly the same as Meta Quest 3.
The panels have a configurable refresh rate between 72Hz and 120Hz, with an "experimental" 144Hz mode, just like the Index.
Steam Frame's lenses (photo by UploadVR at Valve HQ).
Valve says the multi-element pancake lenses in front of the panels offer "very good sharpness across the full field of view", which the company describes as "slightly less than Index", and "conservatively" 110 degrees horizontal and vertical.
Lens separation is manually adjusted via a wheel on the top of the headset, letting wearers match their interpupillary distance (IPD) for visual comfort.
Wireless PC Adapter With Foveated Streaming
Steam Frame does not support DisplayPort or HDMI in. It is not a tethered headset. Instead, Valve is going all-in on compressed wireless streaming, aiming to perfect it with a combination of clever hardware and software.
The headset has two separate wireless radios. One is used as a client, connecting to your home Wi-Fi network on the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band for the general internet connection of SteamOS. The other is for a 6GHz Wi-Fi 6E hotspot, created by the headset, that SteamVR on your PC automatically connects to via the USB adapter included in the box.
It's a truly dedicated point-to-point connection between Steam Frame and your PC.
The wireless adapter is included in the box (photo by UploadVR at Valve HQ).
This gives Valve precise firmware-level control over the entire network stack for wireless PC VR and eliminates the problems you might experience using other standalone headsets for this, such as being bottlenecked by a router that's either too far away, blocked by too many walls, congested by other traffic, or just supplied by your ISP because it was cheap, not because it's any good.
Of course, some enthusiasts already have a high-quality Wi-Fi setup for PC VR, with a premium router or access point in the room where they play. Valve tells us that such people can continue to use their setup instead of the adapter if they really want, but suspects they won't.
The other feature Valve has implemented to make the wireless PC VR experience as good as it can possibly be is foveated streaming. Steam Frame has built-in eye tracking, and when you're using PC VR it's always used to encode the video stream in higher resolution where you're currently looking.
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While this feature has existed as part of Steam Link VR for Quest Pro since the app launched in late 2023, Valve says on Steam Frame the foveated streaming has lower latency and greater precision, thanks to the company controlling the entire software stack on the headset side.
Linux, Windows & Android Apps Standalone
Steam Frame can run Linux, Windows, and Android applications through a combination of compatibility layers and emulation.
As with other SteamOS devices such as Steam Deck, Steam Frame can run Linux titles natively as well as Windows applications via Proton, the compatibility layer Valve has been working on for almost a decade now in collaboration with CodeWeavers.
But while Steam Deck is an x86 device, the same CPU architecture as a gaming PC, Steam Frame uses the mobile-focused ARM architecture. That supports a huge advantage: Steam Frame can natively run Android APKs, including those you download in the web browser, as long as they don't require Google Play Services. And Valve will now be accepting Android APKs on Steam, so developers can easily port their Meta Quest games.
But the ARM architecture also means that Steam Frame can't natively run x86 applications, which the majority of Steam games are.
Photo by UploadVR at Valve HQ.
To solve this, Valve has been investing in FEX, an open-source tool for emulating x86 applications on ARM Linux devices that it has integrated into Proton on Steam Frame. The company tells UploadVR that the performance impact here is "shockingly small" – on the order of a few percent.
The ability to run x86 Windows applications means that Steam Frame can, in theory, run almost any VR title on Steam.
However, the key word here is "run". Steam Frame features a roughly 10-watt chipset originally designed for use in smartphones, and has only a fraction of the power of the gaming PC hardware that most SteamVR titles were designed for. Thus, while visually simplistic and well-optimized titles at relatively low graphics settings will run well, and there'll be a "Steam Frame Verified" tag for such titles on Steam, for high-fidelity VR gaming such as playing Half-Life: Alyx you'll want to leverage your PC.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 + 16GB RAM
Steam Frame is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, paired with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM.
Two models will be sold, one with 256GB UFS storage and the other with 1TB, and there's also a microSD card slot for expanded storage. In fact, you can even transfer the microSD card from your Steam Deck or Steam Machine, and your games will instantly be available to play.
Non-shipping transparent internal prototype (photo by UploadVR at Valve HQ).
So just how powerful is Steam Frame's chip? Well, the XR2 Gen 2 series used in pretty much every other non-Apple headset features the Adreno 740 GPU from the 8 Gen 2 smartphone chip, and the 8 Gen 3 is the successor from the year after with the newer Adreno 750.
On paper, Steam Frame's Adreno 750 GPU is 25% more powerful than the Adreno 740 in Meta Quest 3, and this difference increases to over 30% when you factor in the fact that Quest 3 slightly underclocks its GPU, while Valve confirmed that Steam Frame does not. Further, the effective performance difference will be even greater in titles that leverage eye-tracked foveated rendering.
The CPU, on the other hand, is much more difficult to compare, as the XR2 Gen 2 uses a non-standard core configuration and 2D benchmarks run on headsets don't induce the maximum clock speed. But based on what we know about the chips, expect Steam Frame to have around 50% improved single-threaded performance compared to Quest 3 and around 100% greater multithreaded, as a rough estimate.
Essentially, from a standalone performance perspective Steam Frame is notably more powerful than other non-Apple standalone headsets, though still significantly less powerful than a gaming PC.
SLAM Tracking & Monochrome Passthrough
Steam Frame has four outwards-facing greyscale fisheye cameras for inside-out headset and controller tracking via computer vision. You don't need base stations, and the headset doesn't support them anyway.
Two of the cameras are on the top corners, and the other two are on the front, near the bottom, widely spaced.
One of Steam Frame's greyscale fisheye tracking cameras (image from Valve).
To make headset tracking work in the dark, Steam Frame also features infrared illuminators, bathing your environment in IR light that the cameras can see.
You can choose to see the real world around you via the two front cameras at any time, though the view is monochrome, and lower resolution than the passthrough on headsets with dedicated mixed reality cameras. But combined with the IR illuminators, the advantage is that it lets you see in the dark.
Front Expansion Port
While Steam Frame has only low-resolution monochrome passthrough by default, it has a user-accessible front expansion port that in theory enables color cameras, depth sensors, face tracking sensors and more to be added.
Valve says the port offers a dual 2.5Gbps MIPI camera interface and also supports a one-lane Gen 4 PCIe data port for other peripherals.
"There is certainly enough flexibility in this port to do anything people are interested in doing", Valve's Jeremy Selan told UploadVR.
Included Controllers With Gamepad Parity
The included Steam Frame Controllers have a relatively similar ringless design to Meta's Touch Plus controllers, and are also tracked by the headset via infrared LEDs under the plastic. However, while Touch Plus controllers have 8 IR LEDs each, 7 on the face and 1 on the handle, Steam Frame Controllers have 18 each, dispersed throughout the face, handle, and bottom, which should make them more resistant to occlusion.
The bigger difference between Touch Plus and Steam Frame Controllers is the inputs. Valve has put all four A/B/X/Y buttons on the right controller and a D-Pad on the left controller, while both have an index bumper in addition to the index trigger.
Steam Frame Controllers (image from Valve).
The idea here is that, together, the Steam Frame Controllers have all the same inputs as a regular gamepad, meaning they can be used for both VR and flatscreen gaming. You can switch between VR and flatscreen seamlessly, and you'll need less space in your bag when traveling.
Steam Frame Controllers also feature capacitive finger sensing on all inputs and the handle, as well as advanced tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) thumbsticks. TMR technology means they should have improved precision and responsiveness compared to traditional potentiometer thumbsticks, and should be significantly more resistant to drift – an issue that plagued the Valve Index Controllers.
Unlike the Index controllers, Steam Frame Controllers don't have built-in hand grip straps. But Valve says it will sell them as an optional accessory for people who want them, a similar strategy to Meta.
Steam Frame and the Steam Frame Controllers (photo by UploadVR).
As with Touch Plus controllers, the Steam Frame Controllers are powered by a single AA battery. They should last roughly 40 hours, though this is highly dependent on how much the haptic actuator gets activated.
Steam Frame does not currently support controller-free hand tracking. It requires some form of input device.
Spec Sheet & Competitors Comparison
Here's a full list of Steam Frame's specs, directly compared to Meta Quest 3 and Samsung Galaxy XR for context:
Valve Steam Frame
Meta Quest 3
Samsung Galaxy XR
Displays
2160×2160 LCD
2064×2208 LCD
3552×3840 micro-OLED
Refresh Rates
72-120Hz (144 Experimental)
60-120Hz (90Hz Home) (72 App Default)
60-90Hz (72Hz Default)
Stated FOV
110°H × 110°V
110°H × 96°V
109°H × 100°V
Platform
SteamOS (Valve)
Horizon OS (Meta)
Android XR (Google)
Chipset
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2
Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2
RAM
16GB RAM
8GB
16GB
Strap
Soft + Battery (Modular)
Soft (Modular)
Rigid Plastic (Fixed)
Face Pad
Upper Face (Enclosed)
Upper Face (Enclosed)
Forehead (Open Default)
Weight
185g Visor 440g Total
397g Visor 515g Total
545g Total
Battery
Rear Pad
Internal
Tethered External
IPD
Manual (Dial)
Manual (Dial)
Automatic (Motorized)
Hand Tracking
❌
✅
✅
Eye Tracking
✅
❌
✅
Face Tracking
❌
❌
✅
Torso & Arm Tracking
❌
✅
❌
Color Passthrough
❌
4MP
6.5MP
IR Illuminators
✅
❌
✅
Active Depth Sensor
❌
❌
dToF
Wi-Fi
7 (Dual Radios)
6E
7
PC Wireless Adapter
✅ (6GHz Wi-Fi 6E)
Discontinued (5GHz Wi-Fi 6)
❌
Default Store
Steam
Horizon Store
Google Play
Unlock
PIN
PIN
Iris
Data Ports
1x USB-C (USB2)
+
2x MIPI / Gen 4 PCIe
1x USB-C (USB 3.0)
1x USB-C
Storage
256GB / 1TB
512GB
256GB
MicroSD Slot
✅
❌
❌
Controllers
Steam Frame Controllers
Touch Plus
+$250
Price
TBD
$500 (512GB)
$1800 (256GB)
Spec Sheet & Index Comparison
And here's it compared to Valve Index, the company's now-discontinued tethered PC VR headset from 2019:
Valve Steam Frame
Valve Index
Standalone
✅
❌
Wireless
✅
❌
Lenses
Pancake
Fresnel
Displays
2160×2160 LCD
1440×1600 LCD
Refresh Rates
72-120Hz (144 Experimental)
72-120Hz (144 Experimental)
Tracking
Inside-Out Computer Vision
Laser Base Stations
Strap
Soft + Battery (Modular)
Rigid Plastic (Fixed)
Weight
185g Visor 440g Total
809g Total
Eye Tracking
✅
❌
Data Ports
1x USB-C (USB2)
+
2x MIPI / Gen 4 PCIe
1x USB-A (USB 3.0)
Controllers
Steam Frame Controllers
Valve Index Controllers
Price
TBD
$1000
Steam Machine
While Steam Frame (of course) supports any gaming PC that can run SteamVR titles, Valve is also releasing its own desktop PC running SteamOS, which, as well as being able to act as a living room console, could make getting into PC VR a more streamlined experience than ever.
Steam Machine is more than 6 times more powerful than Steam Deck, Valve tells UploadVR, with a discrete CPU and GPU, not a unified APU architecture.
The RAM and storage are user-upgradable, Valve confirmed, while the CPU and GPU are soldered on.
You'll "eventually" be able to wake Steam Machine via a Steam Frame without needing a physical display or other peripherals attached, though Valve couldn't say whether this functionality will be available at launch. When this does arrive, it means you'll be able to just grab your Steam Frame and jump straight into high-performance PC VR at any time in seconds, no need to manually boot up a PC.
"Aiming" For Cheaper Than Index
Valve isn't yet giving a specific price for Steam Frame or Steam Machine, saying that it doesn't yet know and referencing the volatility of the current macroeconomic environment.
The company did however tell UploadVR that it's aiming to sell Steam Frame for less than the $1000 Index full-kit.
"As soon as we know pricing, we'll be sharing", Valve said.
The soon-to-be Steam hardware family (image from Valve).
Steam Frame is set to launch in "early 2026", alongside the new Steam Machine and Steam Controller. It will be available in all the same countries where Steam Deck is sold today, and fully replaces Index in Valve's lineup.
If you're a developer, you can apply for early access to a Steam Frame kit today, though there are limited units available.
NVIDIA may garner the lion's share of AI news, but AMD has its own selection of extremely potent AI processors, and it has been making rapid progress on both the hardware and software fronts in recent years. It was just a few months ago back in June that the company launched its Instinct MI350 accelerator, and in September the company made
In recent months, rumours have been swirling around new hardware from Valve, the company behind Steam. Today, the curtain was officially lifted, revealing not only the Steam Frame wireless VR headset, but also a second-generation Steam Controller, which serves as a more traditional gamepad compared to the original. On top of all of that, Valve's Steam Machine is also making a grand comeback, this time as a first-party console to complement the Steam Deck.
The Steam Frame is, as previously predicted, Valve's wireless VR solution. Replacing the Index, this is a lightweight VR headset with Touch-style controllers and built-in sensors. It isn't just a VR headset though, it is its own PC, complete with SteamOS installed, so you can download and run traditional PC games and play them on a massive virtual screen.
Just like with the Valve Index, the Steam Frame is designed with comfort at the forefront. The dimensions of the headset are compact and slim, so you won't have too much weight hanging off your face. The headband is designed to easily slip on and off, and there is a tuning dial in the headset to help you fine-tune the fit.
Custom lenses have been created for the headset to create a large viewing window and keep the image sharp from edge-to-edge. Better yet, you'll have a total pixel count of 2160×2160, so you shouldn't even really notice gaps between the pixels, something that was an issue for early-generation VR headsets. Games will feel fluid too, with a full 144Hz refresh rate.
Just like the Steam Deck, Valve will have a ‘Steam Frame Verified' system in place, so you'll easily be able to tell at a glance which titles in your library, or on the Steam Store, can comfortably run on the headset.
Now the second announcement today is one we did not expect. Valve is bringing back the Steam Machine. It is a small cube-shaped PC, one that measures smaller than a banana, meaning it should be easy to integrate into most gaming set-ups. If you really don't want to see it, it should be small enough to stash behind your TV, or a plant, or just about anything. The faceplate of the Steam Machine is also removable, so you can swap out the plain black one for a custom one of your choosing.
Valve is promising 4K/60FPS gaming from the Steam Machine (with FSR), making it ideal for living room gaming. Under the hood, it is powered by a custom AMD chip with six Zen 4 CPU cores, alongside a semi-custom RDNA 3 GPU with 28 Compute Units, 8GB of VRAM and a 110W TDP. As you would expect, it comes with SteamOS pre-installed, and it has plenty of USB ports to hook up a controller, keyboard and mouse, along with any speakers or additional peripherals. Through its HDMI 2.0 connection, you can achieve 4K at 120Hz, or alternatively, you can use the DisplayPort 1.4 port for 4K resolution at up to 240Hz.
Just like the Steam Deck and Steam Frame, games on the Steam Store will all be subject to a verification programme, so you'll easily be able to filter your library, or the Steam Store, for games that will reliably run and play well on the system. As this is essentially a desktop PC, you can always exit the Steam Big Picture mode and access the full desktop, enabling you to install your own apps, get work done or browse the web.
To complement the Steam Machine, Valve has also announced its new Steam Controller. This is a lot larger than your typical Xbox or PlayStation style game pad, thanks to the addition of two large trackpad surfaces underneath the thumbsticks. It also has gyro controls, HD rumble and a wireless charging puck. Imagine a Steam Deck without the screen and the two controller halves smushed together and bam, you have the new Steam controller. It isn't quite as nice looking as the original to me, but if you are after a pad with lots of functionality, this one appears to have it in spades.
Unfortunately, we do not have pricing information just yet, but all three products are due to launch in ‘early 2026', so expect more news within the next few months.
KitGuru Says: Valve now has an entire hardware ecosystem for PC gamers, fully leveraging the power of the Steam platform. As we've seen with the Steam Deck, Valve is also likely to support these systems for a long time, so anyone buying won't have to worry about a ‘Gen 2' being just around the corner. Valve has shown a willingness to wait for technology to deliver truly meaningful upgrades, rather than jump at the first opportunity to push customers to newer, more expensive devices.
FromSoftware and Bandai Namco have announced the first expansion for Elden Ring Nightreign – The Forsaken Hollows. Better yet, the DLC will launch for all platforms in just a couple of weeks.
The Forsaken Hollows introduces two new playable characters, Scholar and Undertaker, each offering distinct abilities. Scholar is an academic with powerful arcane skills and a talent for battlefield observation, while Undertaker is an abbess armed with strength and faith, tasked with sending foes to the afterlife.
Aside from the two new playable characters, the DLC also adds two more boss fights, and a new in-game event called The Great Hollow. In The Great Hollow, players will explore a vast cavity filled with ruins, temples and sacred towers that hint at an ancient civilisation, all while avoiding cursed crystals that drain life.
Elden Ring: The Forsaken Hollow is launching on December 4th for all platforms.
Each month, Sony reveals a new batch of titles for the PlayStation Plus Extra library, alongside new ‘classic' titles for PlayStation Plus Premium members. November 2025's line-up has just been announced, and as expected, Grand Theft Auto V is the headliner, but there are nine other titles also being made available at no extra cost.
Grand Theft Auto V will be available to PlayStation Plus Extra subscribers once again, marking the third time that the game has joined the library. It is likely to remain playable for a couple of months at least, but it will eventually be removed again, as Take-Two prefers to rotate games in and out of subscription services, rather than leave them in there long-term.
Here is the full list of titles joining PlayStation Plus Extra this month:
Grand Theft Auto V — PS5, PS4
Pacific Drive — PS5
Still Wakes the Deep — PS5
Insurgency: Sandstorm — PS5, PS4
Thank Goodness You’re Here! — PS5, PS4
The Talos Principle II — PS5
Monster Jam Showdown — PS5, PS4
MotoGP 25 — PS5, PS4
Those subscribed to PlayStation Plus Premium will get one extra ‘classic' game to install this month – Tomb Raider: Anniversary, specifically, the original PS2 version.
Subscribers will be able to download all of these titles starting on November 18th.
Bethesda surprised us all earlier this year with the release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. As it turns out, they may have another big remaster cooking up – Fallout 3.
We've been hearing rumours about a Fallout 3 remaster for years. However, now that Bethesda has discovered this new method with Virtuos, allowing them to completely overhaul the graphics while leaving the underlying code untouched, a remaster is more feasible than ever.
With The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, the game essentially runs the original game under the hood, with an Unreal Engine 5 wrapper to handle graphics. This means that the entire game remains intact from the original release, with no extra work required to rebuild systems and mechanics. This also has the added benefit of carrying forward mod support.
While Bethesda has not publicly announced any plans for a remaster for Fallout 3, VGC claims to have heard that the project does exist and is being actively worked on, with plans to make it similar to the Oblivion remaster.
If true, it would help Bethesda bridge its massive gap between major projects. Right now, the company is hard at work on The Elder Scrolls 6, but as we learned recently, the game is still ‘a long ways off'. Unfortunately for Fallout fans, this also means that Fallout 5 is no closer to release, and likely won't see the light of day until after 2030.
While not a remaster, recently Bethesda did also release an Anniversary Edition version of Fallout 4, although the update has not been particularly well received amongst PC players.
Connexion
