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Valve Opens Steam Frame VR Headset Reservations as CNET Calls It an Experiment in Progress

Valve has opened reservations for its Steam Frame VR headset, priced from $1,059, through Sept. 17. The Linux-based SteamOS device includes a copy of Half-Life: Alyx and is described by CNET as an ambitious experiment in progress.

AI News Feed · 2026-09-15 10:25

CNET's review describes the Steam Frame as an ambitious VR headset that feels like an experiment in progress. CNET's editor at large argues that it is not necessarily the future of XR, as much as it is a framework for evolving beyond the present. The review points to the ability to run other apps in windows, which can make the Frame feel at times almost like a computer. Linux apps in desktop mode range from Chromium to Firefox and other tools. The reviewer watched YouTube in one window while playing Portal 2 in another and began to marvel at how flexible the Frame could be. VR games, however, require a full immersive takeover of the headset.

The Steam Frame can convert games intended for both PC VR and even Android APK files using a conversion tool called Lepton. The reviewer had not sideloaded anything yet, but wrote that the Frame could in theory be a Rosetta Stone for VR gaming, even tapping into some Android XR titles, though not out of the box.

2D games can be projected onto a near-range or farther-off theater mode screen that can be dragged around, resized and turned into a curved or flat monitor, much like with Apple Vision Pro, Samsung Galaxy XR or Meta Quest. Users can download any game in their Steam library to test, even if it is not technically listed as Great on Frame yet.

The name Frame suggests a framework, something Valve's team acknowledged when the reviewer spoke to them during the review process. Jeremy Selan, a software developer on the Steam Frame team, said, "We want this to be your PC, and people mod it, take it apart, make accessories for it." He added, "We'll be putting out the CAD for all these [Steam Frame] systems. This is entirely based on open-source technology stacks based upon SteamOS. Our hope is that this isn't just one device, that this would be sort of the root of a growing SteamOS ecosystem. It already encompasses gaming and Proton and SteamOS and those Linux gaming capabilities. This is going to lay the foundation for a new sort of evolutionary tree of that, to also bring it into the VR and XR space."