Valve Steam Frame Review: Costly and Inconsistent
Source: Wired ·
The Steam Frame’s promise of greatness for stand-alone and streaming VR gaming doesn’t quite connect.
From the source
Valve has had a complicated relationship with virtual reality gaming. Its Steam client—the number one distribution platform for PC games—has long supported VR titles and works with headsets from other manufacturers. But the company's flagship VR headset , 2019’s Valve Index , never quite escaped its niche. It saw a huge sales spike in the run-up to the release of headline title Half-Life: Alyx , but by February 2025, it accounted for only 13.2 percent of VR headsets used on Steam. Enter the Steam Frame , Valve’s second attempt at snatching the VR gaming crown. More than a hardware refresh, it promises to reimagine PC VR gaming, operating as a stand-alone headset like the Meta Quest 3 , the current reigning champion, while letting users seamlessly stream games from a more powerful remote machine. It mostly succeeds—but a few issues hold it back. Specs-wise, the Steam Frame is one of the better VR headsets, though far from a powerhouse. It packs a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip—a slightly…