Category: valve

Posted on

Valve Launches SteamVR 2.0 Beta, Bringing Long-awaited Platform Features into VR

After a period of significant silence about VR from the company, Valve today surprise-released a beta for SteamVR 2.0, a major upgrade to the platform’s VR interface which finally brings more of the platform’s core capabilities into VR.

Valve originally said it planned to release “SteamVR 2.0” in 2020. But it would be Valve without the infamous Valve Time. So here we are three years later and SteamVR 2.0 has been released in beta.

This is a major upgrade to the SteamVR interface which better aligns SteamVR with the modern Steam and Steam Deck experiences.

Image courtesy Valve

Valve says that with the update “most of the current features of Steam and Steam Deck are now part of SteamVR.” That appears to include things that have been long-missing a native implementation into SteamVR, like chats, voice chats, and the modern Steam Store and Library. The update also adds an updated keyboard with the addition of emojis, themes, and more languages.

Valve says the beta update is “just the beginning of SteamVR 2.0’s journey, and we’ll have more to share in the coming weeks and months as we collect feedback and work on the features mentioned above. This beta will give us a chance to work out the kinks as more and more people try it out. As with all betas, this means SteamVR 2.0 will get better and better as we prepare it for its eventual full public launch.”

How to Install SteamVR 2.0 Beta

If you want to try the SteamVR 2.0 beta today, before it’s pushed out to all users, you need to opt into both the Steam beta branch, and the SteamVR beta branch. Here’s how:

Steam beta:
  1. Open Steam > Click ‘Steam’ in menu bar > Settings > Interface > Client Beta Participation.
  2. Set Client Beta Participation to ‘Steam Beta Update’
  3. Steam will restart
SteamVR beta:
  1. Open Steam library > right-click SteamVR > Properties > Betas > Beta Participation.
  2. Set Beta Participation to ‘beta – SteamVR Beta Update’
  3. Once you close the window, SteamVR will begin updating to the beta branch.

A Taste of Things to Come?

SteamVR 2.0 might be about more than just improving the platform’s VR interface. Recent work by the company that’s been happening right alongside these interface improvements also suggests Valve is still working on a standalone VR headset. Whether we’ll see that any time soon is unclear… Valve Time never ceases to surprise.

Posted on

Update to SteamVR Suggests Valve is Still Working on a Standalone Headset

Valve is a notorious black box when it comes to basically everything. A recent update to Steam client for VR though suggests the company is still working behind the scenes on what appears to be its long-awaited standalone VR headset.

As revealed by tech analyst and consummate Steam data miner Brad Lynch, a recent update to Steam’s client included a number of VR-specific strings related to batteries, which seems to support the idea that Valve is currently readying the platform for some sort of standalone VR headset.

Image courtesy Brad Lynch

The update also included mention of new UI elements, icons, and animations added to the Steam Client for VR—something it probably wouldn’t do for a competitor’s headset, like Meta’s soon-to-release Quest 3 standalone.

Meanwhile, South Korean’s National Radio Research Agency (RAA) recently certified a “low-power wireless device” from Valve, also spotted by Lynch. It’s still too early to say whether the device in question is actually a standalone VR headset—the radio certification only mentions it uses 5 GHz wireless—however headsets like Meta Quest 2 are equally as vague when it comes to RAA listings.

Granted, Valve hasn’t come out and said it’s developing a standalone VR headset yet, although with mounting competition from Apple and Meta, 2024 may be the year we finally see the ‘Index of standalone VR’ come to the forefront. Valve Index has widely been regarded as the ‘best fit’ PC VR headset, owing to its excellent quality, performance, and comfort—something we called “the enthusiast’s choice” in our full review of the headset back when it launched in 2019.

But it hasn’t been entirely mum either. In early 2022, Valve chief Gabe Newell called its handheld gaming PC platform Steam Deck “a steppingstone” to standalone VR hardware, nothing that Steam Deck represented “battery-capable, high-performance horsepower that eventually you could use in VR applications as well.”

– – — – –

While a capable, high-end standalone VR headset from Valve is certainly something to salivate over, a few big questions remain: What will happen when Valve opens Steam up to standalone VR content? How would the largely Meta-heavy ecosystem react as Steam becomes a new outlet for VR games? And what if Valve’s headset is instead capable of playing some subsection of standard PC VR content? We don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but with Valve’s continued interest in VR, we’re still pretty hopeful to find out.

Posted on

This ‘Portal 2’ Mod Brings Full VR Support to Valve’s Award-winning Puzzler

Flat2VR, the modding team known for bringing unofficial VR support to games such as Final Fantasy XIV, Half-Life 2, Jedi Outcast, and Left 4 Dead 2, recently released a mod for Portal 2 which finally brings SteamVR support to the iconic puzzle game.

The mod is free, and posted to Giovanni ‘Gistix’ Correia’s Github, a contributing member of Flat2VR. If you need help installing, there are instructions on the mod’s Github page, howevrr you can also head over to the Flat2VR Discord (invite link) for help.

Another pretty handy coincidence: Valve has again put both Portal and Portal 2 on sale for just $1 a piece, or in the Portal bundle for just $1.50 total, giving you basically no excuse not to play this mod—provided you have a VR-ready PC and a headset such as a Valve Index or Quest 2 (with Link).

Check out this 20-minute playthrough showcasing just how fluid the VR mod is: