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Engadget's review of Valve's Steam Frame VR headset finds it capably runs a standalone version of Half-Life: Alyx along with older VR titles like Beat Saber and Superhot, loading faster than Meta's Quest 3. The headset also supports newer SteamVR games, 2D Steam titles, and wireless PC streaming, positioning it as a broader 'Steam Machine' for the face rather than a pure standalone device.
Valve developers told the BBC and other outlets that the Steam Frame VR headset was meant to launch cheaper, but rising global RAM and storage costs forced its price up to $1,059. The company said it was too late in development to redesign the device with less memory, and it may be selling the headset near cost, similar to its Steam Machine console.
The Verge editor Sean Hollister, who spent three weeks beta-testing Valve's new Steam Frame headset, hosted a live subscriber Q&A answering questions about the device, its controllers, accessory kit and the Arcturus Vision Camera. He also confirmed the headset left no red mark on his face despite extended wear during a photoshoot.
Valve's new $1,059 Steam Frame VR headset ships with a native ARM64 version of Half-Life: Alyx, letting the 2020 PC VR game run standalone on the device's Snapdragon chip without needing a desktop PC. The port preserves mods and save files and, according to Valve, was made possible by combining the headset's eye-tracking-driven foveated rendering with 16GB of VRAM.
Valve has set official pricing for its Steam Frame headset, which plays flat and VR games locally or via streaming from a PC: $1,059 for the 256GB model and $1,299 for the 1TB version. Every unit ships with a copy of Half-Life: Alyx, now natively ported to run on the device. Buyers must first join a waitlist by September 17, with a lottery determining who gets early purchase access starting September 18.
The Verge's review details weeks of testing Valve's new $1,059-$1,299 Steam Frame, a wearable PC positioned as more than a VR headset—an attempt at a full spatial computing device for playing flat Steam games alongside VR titles. The reviewer praises its comfort and lightweight design but reports frequent crashes, disappearing controls and audio, and full power failures during use.
Gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally run full PC operating systems—SteamOS or Windows—so they suffer from the same software buildup issues as desktop computers. Periodically restarting these devices can resolve problems like game crashes, frame drops, lag, and audio glitches by clearing background processes and giving the system a fresh start. Valve itself lists restarting as an early troubleshooting step on its official Steam Deck support page.
Bulkhead's new tactical shooter Wardogs has surpassed one million copies sold on Steam, peaking at over 340,000 concurrent players on its launch day, thanks to a 100-player 'king of the hill' mode split across three squads. Meanwhile, Iron Gate's survival game Valheim has exited five years of early access with its 1.0 release, also launching on PS5 and Switch 2 with cross-platform play for up to 10 people.
An update to Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown shows Ubisoft experimenting with a new feature called Ubisoft Connect Services, which links a player's Ubisoft account without forcing them to install the full Ubisoft Connect client. Ubisoft says more of its Steam titles will eventually get this option, though no rollout timeline has been given.
Developer FamBoy32-dev released LiveHaptics, a free app that routes a PC's system audio into the Steam Controller's rumble motors, letting hearing-impaired users feel movies, music and games as vibration patterns. The tool works on Windows and Linux, supports USB, Bluetooth and Valve's wireless receiver, and processes audio through a per-channel DSP chain before converting it into a haptic pulse stream.
Starting September 9, Australian law requires online game and app storefronts to verify that buyers are over 18. Steam is meeting this requirement by asking users to link a bank card rather than submit government ID or biometric data, mirroring the approach it already uses in the UK. Credit cards work reliably since Australian issuers only give them to adults, but debit cards—often held by minors—only pass verification under narrower conditions tied to specific bank and network flags.
Asus' Cetra Open wireless gaming earbuds are on sale for $22 off at Amazon and Best Buy, dropping the price to $206.99. It's the first discount the open-style earbuds have received since launch.