Tracked: Shoot to Survive is a narrative survival adventure made for VR from the Green Hell VR studio, offering an exciting tale that needs further work. Read on for our full review.

Following Incuvo's work on Green Hell VR, Tracked: Shoot To Survive - or Tracked for brevity - feels like a natural step forward to create a narrative survival game that shares similar DNA with the jungle adventure. This new release expands its commitment to a linear story with more biomes and activities, at the cost of resembling PS2 graphics. While some may appreciate a more single-player focused experience, these dated visuals don't provide a fair tradeoff for what's here.

Starting out in a light aircraft on the way to St. Hubert’s Caldera, a fictional island in British Columbia, protagonist Alex Hart is on his way to spread his father’s ashes with his sister Samantha. Their relationship is strained, as we quickly learn in their brief interactions, with her tattooed sleeves alluding to a troubled past. Unexpectedly shot down by gunfire just before arriving, Alex regains consciousness injured amidst the wreckage.

Doing the motion of bandaging your hands to heal shows a made-for-VR aspect that can be recognized instantly. Next to a hastily written note about drug smugglers who shot down the wrong airplane, Green Hell VR’s same backpack inventory system is now yours to keep any useful items in your path. As the saying goes, why fix what isn't broken?

Narrative emphasis is evident from the start. Overhearing these drug traffickers say that Alex’s sister was kidnapped by them gives us a clear goal to work towards. Numerous written documents detailing the island and its inhabitants make for an interesting read between killing aggressive wildlife and enemies alike. The wooden voice acting ranges from explanatory when obtaining new items to emotional, though the dramatic tension gets a little over the top. Flashbacks abound as it is a narrative device to show Alex and Samantha's childhood summers with their father. Subject matters like substance abuse, family drama, and friendship betrayal verge on clichéd in their execution, though the writing itself is gritty enough.

Your father’s old cabin serves as a base of operations; pushing through to save Alex’s sister is not a straightforward task. Every so often, Tracked forces you to create items at your crafting table to proceed, such as the climbing axe to ride a zipline or warm clothes to withstand colder atmospheres. To manually craft every item makes the immersion a highlight, too. Pulverizing coal and sulfur for gunpowder, stitching together a larger backpack to carry more weight from animal pelts, and cooking animal meat with blueberries for a nutritious broth are but a few necessary actions to face Mother Nature fully equipped.

Surviving in the wilds is not a walk in the park. A wristwatch reminds us of Alex's hunger and thirst levels, causing his early demise if these needs are ignored. Ensuring a safe water source from creeks to industrial plastic barrels, which are thankfully abundant, is a must. Granola bars are suspiciously copious as well, to satiate Alex’s famine. Difficulty options can turn these survival mechanics either completely off or more punishing, depending on your mileage and narrative interest. Welcome options for those after a less punishing, more story-focused experience.

Fighting tooth and nail against the military-trained drug smugglers, Tracked has plenty of combat in its 10 or so hour main quest. Hiding in tall grass, at least in the beginning, you must sneak your way before finding a knife to counterattack. All combat encounters are usually against two unsuspecting enemies. The AI isn't that smart; strafing to get closer with the knife, or eventually the litany of firearms available, will make short work of them. The fact that enemies can also perceive you through doors is quite discouraging.

A bow, shotgun, rifle, and revolver each offer multiple ways to tackle each clash. Reloading has a distinct movement for every one of them. Opening the chamber of the revolver and loading the bullets manually may sound cumbersome for some, but after getting used to it, you can relive your western dreams with it. Finding upgrades during the story to store more ammo and reload faster helps. However, the bow isn't particularly accurate and the shotgun never really allowed me to load it. Opening the chamber to try to load the shells was hopeless because reaching for the ammo resulted in it closing off again. That said, the rifle equipped with a scope delivers accurate shots to eliminate beavers and deadbeats alike.

There is a fair balance between fighting the wilderness and humans. Each of the open areas that you explore, ranging from warehouses and cabins to caves and forests, is so different; every hostile environment provides unique enemy encounters. It's quite imposing to struggle against a wild bear over a swift wolf, with the latter appearing more often at night. Scavenging for animal supplies is disgustingly gruesome as you separate the poor carcass in two, causing a splatter in the process. The buzzing sounds of flies next to a haunting howl sell the idea of being stranded in an unforgiving wildland well.

The day and night cycle is important to consider, as it's nigh impossible to explore once it gets dark without crafting the headlamp to aid your vision. Tracked’s level design is well considered enough to let you backtrack to previous areas, with smartly placed ladders and doors that unlock as you progress. This isn't as mind-blowingly interconnected as a Metroidvania, but with some side quests asking to forage for specific items, these shortcuts are convenient.

A notebook hovering in Alex’s chest at all times helps to give a welcome sense of direction. From the many tabs on display, a map of every level explored makes getting lost virtually a nonissue. Diary-style entries explain the fledging protagonist’s train of thought well as he slowly becomes a seasoned survivor to save his sister. Tracking unlocked achievements is quick, with the game celebrating goals like crafting 100 bullets or drawing first blood, though you don't earn any rewards for this. All documents obtained are easily accessible, with the standout “Finding Bigfoot” side quest panning out in a silly way.

Addressing the elephant in the room, the graphics leave a lot to be desired by Quest 3 standards. Reminiscent of PlayStation 2 visuals, the low-poly character models, exaggerated enemy grunts, and janky AI don't do Tracked any favors. Its linear levels, while clever at times, don't allow for much intuitive exploration. Tracked’s narrative focus delivers, but it's hampered by dated looks.

Finally, the third act, which currently suffers from frequent stutters and crashes, leaves a bad taste in an otherwise serviceable adventure. Incuvo confirmed that it's aware of these issues and is actively working to patch them.

Tracked: Shoot to Survive - Final Verdict

You can see Tracked's promise of cutting your teeth in an unthinkable situation to prevail against all odds. However, its presentation ends up feeling like a product of yesteryear, which isn't helped by poor AI and performance issues.

For the insatiable VR player constantly searching for the next story-driven campaign, it's easier to recommend, albeit with the warning to hold off until the framerate issues are resolved. Tracked won me over with its heartfelt narrative, unserious Rambo-esque combat antics, and VR-centric crafting mechanics that kept me engaged throughout. I just wish there weren't so many strings attached.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.

Quest 3S is on sale for $250 at Best Buy, and comes with a $50 gift card, 1 month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners VR game.

That's a $50 discount from the headset's regular $300 price, and the three perks together are worth $110. You can find the deal for the 128GB base model of Quest 3 here.

A similar offer is available for the 256GB storage model, with a $330 price ($70 off) and the same $110 of perks. In both cases, you still get 3 months of the Meta Horizon+ subscription, as with all purchases of new Meta Quest headsets.

You could use the $50 Best Buy gift card to get the Elite Strap to make the headset more comfortable for just $10, for example, while during the 1 month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (normally $30) you can play flatscreen games like Call of Duty and Fortnite on a giant virtual screen.

As for The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, it's also normally $30, and it's widely considered to be one of the best VR games of all time, earning an 'Essential' score in our review.

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With two big updates under its belt, there’s never been a better time to get into The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. Read on for our 2021 The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners review! Note: This is an updated review based on The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners after its second free

UploadVRJamie Feltham

While Quest 3S can run all the same content as Quest 3, and has the same fundamental capabilities (including the same XR2 Gen 2 chipset and 8GB RAM), if you have the funds we always recommend Quest 3 over Quest 3S. The proper Quest 3 features Meta's advanced pancake lenses which are clearer and sharper over a wider area, have a wider field of view, and are fully horizontally adjustable, suitable for essentially everyone's eyes. These pancake lenses also enable Quest 3 to be thinner, which makes the headset feel slightly less heavy.

Still, at $250 and with $110 worth of perks Quest 3S could be hard to say no to, and it could be an impulse gift for the holiday season to bring a friend or loved one into VR and mixed reality.

VR puzzle adventure Tin Hearts is getting into the Christmas spirit, bringing its first act to Quest next month.

Developed by Rogue Sun and IPHIGAMES, Tin Hearts is a Lemmings-style game that explores the story of a fictional Victorian inventor, Albert Butterworth. Guiding toy soldiers through this Dickensian world with block-based puzzles, VR support arrived in a post-launch on PS VR2 and Steam last year. Now, it's coming to Quest in an episodic release that begins on December 11.

Detailed in a press release, publisher Wired Productions calls Act 1 a standalone episode where these tiny soldiers are appropriately dressed for the festive season in an attic filled with toys. Costing $5.99 for the first part, Acts 2, 3, and 4 will follow “in the coming weeks” on Quest, though no specific release dates were confirmed.

Originally released through a now delisted PC VR prologue on PC VR in 2018, we had positive impressions in our Tin Hearts VR preview two years ago. Stating it offers “some well-considered mechanics” that caught our attention, we believed it provides “enjoyable puzzles and an intriguing whimsical setting.”

Tin Hearts is out now in full on flatscreen platforms, PS VR2, and PC VR. Act 1 arrives on the Meta Quest platform on December 11.

How to God, the deity-themed sandbox experience, launches in Early Access next month on Quest.

Developed by Thoughtfish (Living Room), How to God lets you train as a deity, completing quests and expanding your powers, as you manage a mini society. You can choose to be benevolent and reward your citizens with bountiful harvests or take the spiteful approach and rocket them with fireballs from the heavens. You can check out gameplay below:

On top of building temples and answering (or ignoring) prayers, you'll also perform acts of alchemy, combining materials to create miracles and matter that advance your society. To assist you in achieving these divine goals, you'll have the help of a petlike creature who can help out the locals with tasks or eat them as punishment.

Various biomes are available to explore, including ancient Egypt and the Scottish Highlands, with each location providing a unique set of problems to solve and quests to complete. As you progress through quests, you'll also earn relics that will upgrade your powers at the Tree of Life.

How to God arrives in Early Access on December 4 for $29.99 on Quest.

Lynx says its next headset won't run Android XR, as Google "terminated" its agreement, but will have by far the widest FOV of any standalone.

If you're unfamiliar, Lynx is a French startup that in 2020 announced Lynx-R1, a standalone mixed reality headset with an open periphery design, and ran a Kickstarter for it in 2021. Had it shipped on time, in 2022, Lynx-R1 would have been the first consumer standalone headset with color passthrough. But after repeated delays it was beaten to market by Meta Quest Pro, and by the time backers started to receive their headsets, years later, Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro had shipped too, with much more powerful chipsets.

Further, at the time of the Kickstarter Lynx-R1 was envisioned as a roughly $500 consumer product, directly competing with Meta Quest headsets, and Lynx says backers did receive headsets for this price and claims that most who did not have received a refund offer. But the price for new orders rose to $850 and then $1300 as the company pivoted to primarily targeting businesses.

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Lynx-R1 production has been “an absolute mess”, says the founder & CEO in a new blog post explaining the reasons.

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When Google revealed its Android XR operating system back in December, it announced that Lynx, Sony, and Xreal were building devices for it too, to follow Samsung.

Last month, Lynx teased its next headset with a darkened image, and because of Google's December announcement, we speculated that it could be the second opaque Android XR headset.

However, Lynx tells UploadVR that Google "terminated Lynx's agreement to use Android XR" in what the startup describes as a "surprising turn of events".

"We remain open to having Android XR running on the device when Google releases the OS for other headsets, as we worked closely with them for a year to make sure the compatibility would be guaranteed", Lynx says in a prepared statement.

Instead, the next Lynx headset will continue to run Lynx OS, the startup's open-source fork of Android with OpenXR support. And Lynx says it will release the source code for both hobbyists and businesses to use as an alternative to closed-source XR operating systems.

UploadVR reached out to Google to ask about the Lynx partnership and the status of Android XR for headsets other than Samsung Galaxy XR. While the company wouldn't comment on the status of any agreement with Lynx, it confirmed that it's still working with Xreal and Sony.

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Lynx released an open-source 6DoF positional tracking system that should work on any Android headset with a Qualcomm chip.

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Lynx will announce details and specifications of its new headset over the coming months, with a full reveal at SPIE in late January.

For now, it's only saying that it will be a "mid-range" headset, priced somewhere between Quest 3 and Galaxy XR, with the widest field of view of any known standalone due to the use of advanced aspheric pancake lenses built in collaboration with Israeli startup Hypervision.

The optical approach here should be somewhat similar to Meta's Boba 3 prototype, though given the practicalities of the standalone form factor, Lynx cautions that while its headset will be noticeably wider than anything else on the market today, it still won't be anywhere near as wide as Boba 3.

When it comes to delivering this time, Lynx founder Stan Larroque tells UploadVR that his company has "learned so much with the R1" in regards to electronics supply chains, and will not do a Kickstarter or preorders for the new headset. When it's available to buy, it will be ready to ship immediately, Larroque claims.

Smash Drums is introducing a new single-player campaign in early access today with missions, RPG-like progression, and fresh in-game rewards.

Hot on the heels of Smash Drums' Halloween event, developer PotamWorks is releasing an update in time for U.S. National Drummer Day, also celebrating the game's fourth anniversary on the Quest store on December 2. Called the God of Drums update, this gives you the chance to scale your skills through a solo game mode with RPG-like leveling mechanics and challenging missions.

This campaign centers around scaling the ranks from a spry instrumentalist to the aptly named God of Drums. To achieve this, percussive players must complete missions where you choose between two base game songs or one DLC track.

Those who successfully rank up will also earn in-game rewards through an RPG-style progression system, which starts at Level 1 and goes up to Level 20. PotamWorks states there will be over 100 missions to tackle on the journey, which can be completed in around 3 to 6 hours.

The Smash Drums 'God of Drums' update is available today in early access on Quest, and the final release is “coming soon” to PS VR2.

“Time is running out!” the voice declares urgently, and I glance up to see 30 seconds left on the clock.

I’m not concerned, though. The game is close but I'm in a strong position. I watch as my opponent pushes his champions down the left lane in a desperate gambit, and I pause to deliberate: do I defend and push the game into overtime, or do I go for the win now? With a single fluid motion, I make my decision, commanding my adorable squad to attack the enemy Glass. It's risky, but what the hell. I’m all in.

Just as I pass the point of no return, I hear the sound of the already weakened Sway Stone breaking and realize that their attack had been a feint. My opponent is now pushing on my central Glass with a big damage advantage. For the first time in the match, I’m in trouble.

With an easy gesture, I put my squad into retreat, though I’m out of position and weakened by their defensive turret. I mount a valiant final attempt to defend my Glass, chaining special attacks to swiftly take down their tank, but it's too little, too late. With seconds left on the clock, a brutal AOE spell finishes off my squad, and my Glass along with it.

But so it goes in Glassbreakers, a game where every decision matters, and it definitely ain’t over until it's over.

Mighty Mouse

Set in the same charming universe as the Moss series, Glassbreakers takes that world’s tiny woodland heroes and drops them into fast-paced, strategic tabletop battles. Each player commands a team of three champions - small but mighty creatures that range from a crossbow-wielding rat and an armored hamster to a mechanical insect and mischievous sprites. Fans of MOBAs will feel right at home and recognize the archetypes instantly: tanks, healers, damage dealers, support, and control - they’re all here.

The aim in Glassbreakers is simple: shatter your opponent’s ‘Glass’ before they destroy yours. Flanking the main Glass are two smaller ones: defensive turrets, of which at least one must be destroyed before the central base becomes vulnerable. It seems simple enough, deceptively so as with all good strategy games. Every match becomes a delicate ballet of micro-decisions, positioning, timing, and calculated risk.

Glassbreakers is a predominantly online competitive game. However, there are still options available for those who wish to play solo. While there’s no campaign to speak of, players can spar against AI opponents across three difficulty tiers. At first these will provide an ample challenge and ensure that there’s always something to enjoy solo, but experienced players will likely find the challenge dwindles after a few hours.

As with many online games, long-term success will likely depend on community strength and how active the player base is. This review-in-progress is based largely on a preview weekend that took place in late October, so it’s not been possible to comment on how active the servers are at launch. Nor have I been able to try the Steam or Apple Vision Pro editions yet for comparison.

There is also a co-op mode where players can team up, splitting control of the three champions between the players, though I've been unable to try that myself during this pre-release period. Glassbreakers also offers cross-platform support and a player base drawn from Quest 3, Steam, and Apple Vision Pro ecosystems.

In The Deep End

At a glance, it might be easy to miss the level of nuance and depth that Glassbreakers offers. The tutorials are well established to show players how to play the game, but what they don’t do as effectively is show you how to play the game well. My first few forays were graceless exercises in repeated, floundering assaults that, understandably, ended in my swift defeat.

With a little perseverance, however, it's one of the most sophisticated and well-balanced strategy games that I’ve ever played, and I’m beyond glad I took the time to delve deeper than that first session.

Once you get the hang of it, Glassbreakers offers a brilliantly layered system that forces players to adapt constantly, shifting between offense and defense, darting between risk and reward. It ebbs and flows in real time, where every decision matters and matches can turn on the tiniest miscalculation.

During the early game, battles tend to be cautious, cat-and-mouse affairs. Each time you knock out an opponent, your champion will level up, activating stronger abilities as they do. Playing recklessly gets you knocked out early on, and you’re handing your rival a power boost. There are also various objective points to compete for that, when captured, let you power up one of your champions. Then there is also the all-important ‘Sway Stone’ to contend with, which temporarily amplifies your damage output against the enemy’s Glass once destroyed.

With all these elements at play, each game of Glass becomes an evolving eight-minute balancing act of risk vs. reward. It’s an intoxicating blend of micro and macro-strategy. There’s always something to think about: who to engage, when to retreat, whether to press an advantage or turtle up and force your opponent’s hand. And because every match is short, defeat never feels punishing; it just makes you want to jump back in and try a new strategy immediately.

Squad Goals

The core of navigating this strategic depth lies in building and executing a cohesive team strategy. Players begin with just three champions, but as you play and level them up, more are unlocked, eventually providing access to a roster of twelve. Each champion has a distinct personality and play style, but it’s the synergies between them that define the real depth here.

One of the game’s greatest strengths lies in how differently it plays depending on your team composition. Two tanks and a healer can form a defensive wall that can grind down your opponent, while a high-risk, high-reward trio of damage dealers can obliterate a careless enemy in seconds. There is an excellent array of viable combinations and play styles for players to concoct, and crafting and trialing these is one of the real joys of playing the game.

Beyond this roster of champions, Glassbreakers also offers four maps that introduce different dynamics, changing the flow of battle and rewarding experimentation and creativity.

The VR Of It All

Most VR tabletop or strategy titles struggle with one key question: why does this need to be in VR?

Glassbreakers answers that question emphatically through its brilliantly tactile control scheme. Rather than relying on traditional gamepad-style commands or complex radial menus, it lets you control your champions using simple, physical gestures that feel instantly natural.

Standing (or seated) above the board, you direct your team by grabbing, reaching, and pointing in space. Want to send all three champions into battle? Reach over your shoulder and pull the trigger to select them all, then bring your hand down to point where you want them to go. Need a quick retreat? Just put your hand over your shoulder and double-tap the trigger, and your team will fall back and converge on your central Glass.

Additionally, using gestures like those in Demeo, you can rotate the entire battlefield around you, raise yourself up to get a better vantage of the action, and then zoom back in to move your champions around the board. It’s almost like handling a living hologram.

What really makes this shine is that it’s just as comfortable for gamers who prefer a couch-style experience. You can play seated, relaxed and still feel deeply engaged. It’s this hybrid design philosophy that makes Glassbreakers so special. Many VR games that rely on minimal movement end up feeling like glorified 2D experiences shoehorned into a headset. But here, Polyarc uses VR’s physicality to enhance the experience, not demand effort from it. The result is a perfect midpoint - a game you can play for hours without fatigue but that still leverages spatial awareness, physical presence, and immersion beautifully.

Here To Slay

Polyarc has always been synonymous with charm and artistry, and Glassbreakers continues that legacy with style to spare.

Each of the twelve champions is meticulously designed, bursting with personality and life. Their animations, gestures, and expressive reactions make them feel like living toys. Just as in Moss, Glassbreakers provides heroes you can’t help but get attached to. Even without a narrative, it retains the storybook magic of the Moss franchise.

Importantly for a game where there is so much to concentrate on at once, Glassbreakers is not only beautiful, but easy to read. Icons and symbols don’t clutter the board. Even in the most hectic of skirmishes, it’s easy to get the right information easily so you can make decisions quickly.

Even the menus and home space (set within the iconic Moss library) exude warmth and polish. Sitting there arranging your team, tweaking their colors and skins, feels intimate and personal.

Sounds Like A Plan

Audio design in Glassbreakers is as impeccable as its visuals.

Each champion’s voice lines are delightfully characterful - distinct enough to feel alive but used sparingly enough to avoid repetition. The soundscape of the battlefield is filled with satisfying detail: the muted crunch of Glass under attack, the metallic ping of Sahima’s chakram bouncing between your opponents, and the satisfying whoosh as Barnard’s spell lands.

The music sways from warm and inviting to building tension as the fight rages on, setting just the right tone for the world - playful, daring, and triumphant all at once.

Spatial audio cues are particularly well implemented. Take your eye off an area of the board, and you’ll hear enemies flanking you before you see them. Whether it's objectives spawning behind you or your Glass taking hits from across the map, the sound design tells the macro while your eyes are focused on the micro. This attention to directional sound makes every match more immersive and helps maintain focus during fast-paced engagements.

Glassbreakers - Current Verdict

It’s difficult to overstate just how much Glassbreakers gets right. Polyarc has crafted a delightfully polished and truly unique experience - one that blends the strategic depth of classic RTS games and the character class/squad mechanics of a MOBA with the tactile immersion of VR.

Glassbreakers is smart, competitive, and highly addictive and stands as one of the best strategy experiences available in VR - and one of the most charming. I'll update this review after spending more time with this in the coming days, but it's a beautifully balanced and brilliantly designed small-scale masterpiece. It deserves a large-scale following and already comes highly recommended.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines. As a review-in-progress, this is currently unscored, and we'll revisit this review soon.

Lushfoil Photography Sim gets PC VR support in a free update next month on Steam.

After launching on Steam earlier this year, the atmospheric photography sim Lushfoil is making its VR debut next month on December 5. Announced in today's VR Games Showcase, it features a diverse range of locations, from quiet mountainous areas to urban spaces, providing avid shutterbugs with opportunities to explore and snap their perfect shot. You can check out the new trailer below:

Across the trailer, we can see the player wielding various cameras, including a traditional DSLR and a smaller digital camera, as well as non-photography items like a flashlight, umbrella, and paper airplane. We can also see them forming an L shape with their hands to create a rectangular frame, which provides an alternative means of taking a photo.

Those looking to get into the nitty-gritty of settings will be able to alter important features like the aperture, focus, and zoom, as well as the exposure, contrast, and white balance. Additionally, you can also alter the weather conditions as you please, adding moody effects like snow, fog, wind, and rain.

Lushfoil Photography Sim will make its PC VR debut on December 5 as a free update on Steam.

PC VR survival game Bootstrap Island just received its last major update before next year's full release.

Following four major updates during its early access period, the most recent one adding the Riverlands, a fifth update is now available for Bootstrap Island on Steam. Visions adds a new sickness and hallucinations system that warps reality as the illness spreads, which can only be cured through a Lotus Flower. Cures can also be found in the new Medicine Box, which contains six mysterious bottles with unknown contents.

Visions is also introducing a new story-driven tutorial that reveals your character's backstory, alongside new in-game item unlocks that appear across the island. New environmental features include subterranean sinkholes that may contain rare resources and quicksand. Dead shipmates killed in your shipwreck will now appear, too. Chests with new items gradually regenerate over time, and this update also promises a quality-of-life improvement for your grab pull.

“With ‘Visions,’ we wanted to push players beyond mere survival,” confirmed Rein Zobel, Creative Director of Bootstrap Island, in a prepared statement. “Illness, hallucination, and uncertainty become part of the experience. Just like in real survival situations, it’s not only the environment you must fight, but your own body and mind.”

As for what's next, May's full release roadmap confirmed that the full release will reveal the mysterious island's deepest secrets, adding tribal inhabitants you can only communicate with via body language. Further updates are planned post-launch focused on new lands and dangers, though little else was confirmed at the time.

Bootstrap Island: Visions is now live on Steam Early Access, with a full release tentatively scheduled for Q1 2026.

Asymmetric co-op platformer VR Giants is heading to Meta Quest headsets this December.

Developed by Risa Interactive, VR Giants originally launched on Steam Early Access in 2023, where one person plays flatscreen using a gamepad as a tiny companion called David, while the VR player controls Goliath to assist him. After confirming online multiplayer plans, the studio advised last month that it's coming to Quest, and today's VR Games Showcase announced a December 11 launch.

Though it's unclear if this is also being introduced on Steam, Risa Interactive states both Quest players will be able to play fully in VR. The studio's also using a 'Free Friends Pass' system for VR Giants, which lets you invite another player to join in without both of you needing to buy the game.

Previously detailing this further, Risa Interactive confirmed that VR Giants includes 23 levels across four biomes: Ice, Desert, Volcano, and Pasture. Goliath can transform into three separate forms, unlockable cosmetics are available for both characters, and the studio states this campaign will offer “8 hours” of gameplay.

VR Giants is out now on Steam Early Access, while the Quest version will follow on December 11.

Deadly Delivery confirmed a release date on Quest and Steam early next month.

In Deadly Delivery, you and up to three friends take on postal jobs to earn cash, with the warning that the recipients of your precious parcels are located in sprawling, peril-filled mines. With monsters lurking around most corners and an all-important quota to hit, your hopeful group will need to work together - or against each other - to earn their keep. You can check out gameplay below:

Communication in Deadly Delivery relies on proximity voice chat. As such, if a teammate strays too far from the safety of the group, you won't necessarily be able to hear them talking or screaming. To navigate, players can also take advantage of the realistic physics throughout the mines and can climb on top of one another to reach objects or evade danger.

The monsters across Deadly Delivery's underground setting aren't simple brutes alone, either, with some able to impersonate your teammates in looks and sound to lure you or trick you out of success. As you make more cash, you'll eventually be able to upgrade your kit with new gear, cosmetics, and pets.

Deadly Delivery arrives on December 4 on Quest and Steam.

Ready or Not will be available for PC VR players through a free mod tomorrow, supporting both the base game and DLC.

Developed by VOID Interactive, Ready or Not is a first-person tactical shooter where players defuse high-stakes situations as members of the Los Sueños Police Department. Initially shown in August, content creator and 2080 Games co-founder VR Oasis confirmed he's working with modder KITT (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries VR Mod) to bring the SWAT simulator to PC VR. Now, today's VR Games Showcase gave us another look.

The Ready or Not VR Mod will be available for free through the game's official mod store, supporting crossplay with flatscreen PC players. This reimagines mechanics like weapon reloading and riot equipment for an immersive platform. Additional features include a handheld tablet to manage missions, a custom body rig kitted with ammo and equipment pouches, and hand gestures to relay squad commands.

This upcoming mod includes additional features like left-handed support, working tactical weapons like grenade launchers, using your voice to control the AI squad, and custom VR door interactions. Supported headsets include Quest, Valve Index, and PS VR2 with a PC adapter, and the press release recommends using “a mid to high-end” gaming PC.

The Ready or Not PC VR mod arrives on November 14, and the full game is available on Steam.

Espire: MR Missions builds upon Espire 2's mixed reality stealth missions, and it's launching on Quest next month.

Starting life as an add-on mixed reality mode to Espire 2: Stealth Operatives in 2023, Espire: MR Missions builds on those foundations by utilizing the boundaries of the player's home as the backdrop for its perilous, militant levels. Announced at today's VR Games Showcase, this standalone release contains new missions and systems, and it launches on December 16 for Quest. You can check out gameplay below:

Espire: MR Missions features 29 different challenges, offering 21 small-scale single-room missions and eight large-scale multi-room missions. It integrates your furniture and home decor into the game world, adding new details like roller doors and lighting effects on top. So while the overarching objectives remain the same throughout, your tactics and gameplay can vary depending on your playspace.

Throughout missions, you'll take on gun-toting OPHIS Guards and navigate cleverly placed laser traps, all while evading the enemy's eyeline. Across the launch trailer, we can see the player disarm and knock out enemy soldiers, as well as grab them and use their retinas to unlock doors and loot them of their firearms.

Espire: MR Missions arrives on December 16 for Quest. Players who already own Espire 2 on Quest before the launch date will receive Espire: MR Missions at no additional cost.

The Lightkeepers promises a supernatural tale of nautical solitude with a new co-op action game on Quest.

Developed by Spectral Games, likely best known for its work on Medieval Dynasty New Settlement, The Lightkeepers takes place in the 1920s in a world “where daylight unveils discoveries and nightfall demands survival.” Though it's unclear exactly how many players this supports, you're tasked with exploring mysterious islands and solving puzzles to prepare for the imminent threat.

Revealed during today's VR Games Showcase, The Lightkeepers promises “new challenges, different enemies, and unpredictable places” across each expedition, featuring weapons ranging from muddy rifles to hand-crafted grenades. The studio states light comes at a price, while fending off the dark involves exploring, crafting, and directly fighting these nocturnal terrors as a team.

Strangely, this isn't the only VR game we've recently seen that's set in the 1920s. Last month saw Curvature Games share more about The Amusement, an Art Deco-style roomscale adventure that's inspired both aesthetically and in its setting by Luna Parks during the 1920s post-war period.

The Lightkeepers launches next year on Quest 3 and 3S.

Syberia VR is an immersive reimagining of the narrative adventure game of the same name, and it's now available on Quest 3 and 3S.

Developed by Virtuallyz Gaming and Microids Studio Paris, Syberia VR puts players in the shoes of Kate Walker, a New York lawyer who's thrust into an enigma-filled adventure across Eastern Europe when a job to settle an estate goes awry. Initially starting life in 2002, this VR version revisits the events of the first game in the series, asking you to solve the mysteries of its steampunk-inspired setting up close.

Kate isn't alone in her journey and is joined by an informed automaton companion called Oscar, who assists the accomplished lawyer with her investigation. Together, the two chase an elusive inventor called Hans Voralberg, who's seeking to find the last remaining mammoths on the titular island.

From a gameplay perspective, this means exploring dioramic spaces, interacting with residents, and solving puzzles across 3D recreations of the original game world. Across the trailer, we can see a handful of the locations Kate visits, including spiderweb-ridden crypts, mechanized factories, and medieval castles, to name a few.

Syberia VR is now available on Quest 3 and 3S. While we didn't receive pre-release access, we'll aim to bring you our full review soon.

Full Steam Undead promises comedic zombie-killing action in an occult Victorian world on Quest and Steam.

Marking the latest game from By Grit Alone developer Crooks Peak, Full Steam Undead takes an action-over-horror approach in a Victorian-inspired open world “with zero loading screens.” Serving at Queen Victoria's behest on Necropolis Island, this lighthearted single-player shooter also gives you a drivable steam engine to assist in your battles.

Crooks Peak states this comes with various minigame-style 'Crypts' that range from mine cart riding to boss battles. Should rage overcome this island, zombie swarms will quickly overwhelm you, and the studio advises this campaign will likely last for around 4 hours.

Various optional gameplay modifiers will be available such as difficulty settings, instant reloads, zombie damage immunity, and a self-explanatory “Zombies explode when they get close” mode. Accessibility options include snap and smooth turning, a swappable gun hand, vignettes, and more. Crooks Peak also says it included a “very forgiving” autosave system.

While Crooks Peak advised these plans are speculative, it's considering additional features that are currently “out of scope before release.” Targeted post-launch updates presently include adding one-handed play support, a realistic steam engine controls mode, additional localizations, a global zombie kill counter, support for both LIV and bHaptics, and more.

Full Steam Undead launches in spring 2026 on Quest and Steam for $12.99.

Orcs Must Die! By The Blade is a VR reimagining of Robot Entertainment's action-tower defense series, and it's launching on Quest next year.

Developed by Teravision Games, who previously released Captain Toonhead vs. The Punks from Outer Space, Orcs Must Die! By The Blade expands on the franchise's monster-slaying lore, rebuilding the core gameplay loop for VR. Alongside setting up traps and surviving a wave of baddies, you also wield various destructive tools in first person to defend your home. You can check out gameplay below:

This campaign features 12 missions across three main chapters, which involve placing intricate traps on a map before taking out Orcs with weapons like axes and swords. By The Blade opts for free locomotion for its combat, letting you move defensively by blocking and countering Orcs, or offensively by swiping and slashing at them.

As you progress through the campaign, you can upgrade your pool of weapons and traps with elemental effects to diversify your destructive portfolio. Those who prefer not to scheme solo can also jump into By The Blade's co-op mode with an additional player.

“My favorite thing to do is hitting orcs with the head of their fallen brothers (or any other limb for that matter, haha),” explained Teravision Games Design Director, Cesar Solis Galindo in a prepared statement. “Building complex combinations of traps and experiencing the explosion of limbs and blood has a familiar but unique feeling, since the orcs in this game will HUNT YOU instead of going straight to the rift.”

Orcs Must Die! By The Blade will launch on January 22, 2026, exclusively on Quest.

CharacterBank revealed its latest project is Knights of Fiona, a full-scale RPG adventure for SteamVR and Meta Quest.

Closing out today's VR Games Showcase, Knights of Fiona is the studio's latest game following 2022's Ruinsmagus, and it's described by the team as a “hand-crafted narrative experience designed from the ground up for VR.” Set in the world of Gallia, you assume the role of Fiona, leading her team of knights against the threat of evil engulfing the realm.

Knights of Fiona incorporates a fully immersive first-person action-RPG battle system as you undergo numerous quests and challenges on your trek to save the world, fighting hordes of enemies and participating in large-scale boss fights against dragons and other creatures. You also explore the city of Gallia from its train station to seaside ports.

The game also promises that players can interact with an array of NPC characters, expanding the depth of the setting beyond the company’s previous titles. According to its director, HOI, Knights of Fiona seeks to build on the experience players had with Ruinsmagus while promising more to the world beyond the missions themselves.

“Knights of Fiona is the result of us closely evaluating everything we heard from players from the release of [that title] and amplifies every area they enjoyed.”

Knights of Fiona is scheduled for release in 2026 on the Meta Horizon Store and SteamVR. 

Banners & Bastions adds new enemies to the mixed reality tactical tabletop roguelite with today's update, and it enters full release next month.

Created by Not Suspicious (Airspace Defender), Banners & Bastions is an MR tabletop roguelite with hand-tracking controls that's currently available in early access. Following last month's addition of controller support, a further update is now live that introduces a dragon boss battle. Two new enemy types are also available - Witch (ranged) and the Elite Swordsman (melee) - alongside a new playable Minefield card.

For the unfamiliar, Banners & Bastions sees every battle occur across procedurally generated maps as you defend your kingdom, with tougher foes emerging across each wave. You can keep investing in your local economy or fortifications, while your troops range from spearmen, knights, archers, and more. More features are on the way next month in a further content update.

Banners & Bastions is out now in early access on the Meta Quest platform, with the full release arriving this December. You can check out our previous early access hands-on to learn more.

Banners & Bastions Hands-On: Satisfying Strategy In Mixed Reality

Banners & Bastions, the mixed reality tower defense game from Not Suspicious, is available now in early access on Quest.

UploadVRDon Hopper

Pocket Lands lets you create miniature worlds in mixed reality before exploring them in VR, and it's out next month in early access.

Marking the latest game from Thomas van den Berge, creator of VR painting app Vermillion, Pocket Lands sees you building miniature worlds in your home using MR. Letting you resize this diorama to fit your entire living room, hand tracking controls allow you to grab building material with your hands before jumping in at any moment to explore in first person through fully immersive VR.

Today's reveal at the VR Games Showcase follows a series of pre-announcement teases, showing a concept reminiscent of Microsoft's famous Minecraft HoloLens demo during E3 2015. Pocket Lands will release in early access this December with various biomes you can discover, while the VR mode promises multiple locomotion options.

With the full release, Thomas van den Berge is currently targeting “the second half of 2026.” This aims to include cave systems and underground biomes, additional surface biomes, creatures roaming the lands, and multiplayer build battles with leaderboards. Co-located and remote creative multiplayer are also planned.

Pocket Lands enters early access on December 11 on the Meta Quest platform.

Vampire Survivors VR is now available in a surprise shadowdrop on Quest, taking a 3D diorama approach.

Announced during the latest VR Games Showcase, developer poncle has teamed up with Radical Forge and Meta to bring the BAFTA award-winning roguelike to Quest. As with the flatscreen version, the Vampire Survivors VR port lets you choose a character based on stats like damage and armor before letting them loose on voxel environments as wave after wave of enemies arrive.

The difference here is that while trying to keep your health bar above zero, you're immersed in iconic game locations, including the Mad Forest, Inlaid Library, and Dairy Plant. Vampire Survivors VR can be played either standing or sitting, with a resizable game board that you can adjust to your liking. This also includes the Tides of the Foscari and Legacy of the Moonspell expansions.

Between bouts of survival combat, you'll open spin-to-win chests and use your hard-earned gold on new characters, permanent upgrades, power-ups, and weapon varieties to enhance your runs. The gothic gameplay is, of course, backed up by Vampire Survivors' signature synth-heavy soundtrack, and we'll bring you dedicated impressions soon.

Vampire Survivors VR is available on Quest now for $9.99.

Men in Black: Most Wanted promises a new story for the comedic sci-fi franchise on Meta Quest next month.

Set in the early 1990s, Men in Black: Most Wanted will have players shrugging on the slick black suit of an MiB agent called Agent I. In Most Wanted, it's up to you and your partner, Agent L, to confront the Cylathians, a hostile alien race that's already attacked MiB agents more than once.

Players will use iconic gear and weapons from the MIB films to investigate paranormal mysteries, uncover clues, and solve environmental puzzles. These include famous MIB weapons like the Noisy Cricket and the memory-wiping Neuralyzer, as well as new toys like the Magnet Gloves, Omni Scanner, and Scout Bug.

Men in Black: Most Wanted is being developed by Coatsink, who previously brought suspense and terror to VR headsets with Jurassic World Aftermath. That dino-themed game used a gorgeous cel-shaded art style that's now been carried over to MiB: Most Wanted.

“We are really excited to announce Men In Black: Most Wanted to the world,” said Eddie Beardsmore, Coatsink COO in a prepared statement. “We’ve worked really hard to capture iconic elements from the series in an experience that blends infiltration, investigation, and combat.”

Men in Black: Most Wanted will debut on Meta Quest on December 5 for $24.99.

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.

Valve Officially Announces Steam Frame, A “Streaming-First” Standalone VR Headset

Steam Frame has an included wireless adapter, and is launching “early 2026”. Read the full specs, features, and details here.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

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.

If you're interested to find out more about how it runs games, you can check out our hands-on impressions and the hardware specifications for more.

Steam Frame Hands-On: UploadVR’s Impressions Of Valve’s New Headset

UploadVR’s Ian Hamilton and David Heaney went hands-on with Steam Frame at Valve HQ, trying both standalone use and PC VR.

UploadVRIan Hamilton

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 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.

Valve Officially Announces Steam Frame, A “Streaming-First” Standalone VR Headset

Steam Frame has an included wireless adapter, and is launching “early 2026”. Read the full specs, features, and details here.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

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.

"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.

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

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.”

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'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?

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.