Steam Frame first reactions arrive online as developers praise Valve's new headset

As the world waits in anticipation for the release of new Steam hardware, some lucky developers who have received Steam Frame dev kits haven’t been able to contain their excitement, sharing opinions with others, or outright streaming their thoughts.

Hopefully, we'll get word on how developers are taking to the Steam Machine, though opinions could be soured depending on how much it costs.

It’s hard to ascertain what sort of NDA Valve has in place. Realistically, they could be encouraging people to start 'leaking' information in a grassroots-esque marketing campaign, or people are risking invoking Gabe Newell’s wrath, but what matters to us is the fact that we’re getting solid information and impressions beyond the initial press previews, where journalists only got a few hours with each device.

Gamertag VR took to X (formerly Twitter) to share his friends’ thoughts on the Steam Frame, though this could easily just whiff of "My dad works at Nintendo".

Alternatively, you could just look to Godot lead XR (Extended Reality) developer, Bastiaann Olij, who took to YouTube to do a livestream on how to get Godot XR games working on the Steam Frame, with express permission from Steam (though they have not yet sent him a Steam Controller, much to his disappointment).

Following the livestream, there is now "official support for AndroidXR and Steam Frame" in Godot 4.6, according to Bastiaann Olij, as seen on Bluesky.

There’s supporting Steamworks Documentation for Godot integration as well, which explains how to do project setup and get Steam Frames features such as eye tracking and foveated rendering working, which will help a game become Steam Frame verified.

Earlier, Valve released its own documentation for the Steam Frame, where you could glean extra nuggets of knowledge, such as the Steam Frame controllers having full finger tracking support.

But as for the livestream, Olij states that how Godot works with Steam Frame is subject to change, and extends this to the headset itself, saying, "Obviously, it’s still a dev kit, so who knows what will change in the next couple of months before it’s actually released".

Valve has stated in the past that it hopes to release the Steam Frame in "early 2026", but there has been much speculation as to whether Valve might delay it owing to skyrocketing pricing for components. Though we don’t know what insight Olij has into the release timeline, to say that the Steam Frame will release in "the next couple of months" lends credence to the notion that Valve is confident it can stick to early 2026.

As for what Olij thinks of the Steam Frame, one of his favourite things is how easy it is to take on and off, and how stable it is when the Steam Frame is popped up and resting on his forehead.

The clip was also posted to X by Andrew Fox.

What’s notable is that Olij wears glasses, and not just the thin rectangular ones from Specsavers, making this a genuine improvement over other headsets. Whilst this may not seem like groundbreaking news, the fact is that what makes or breaks a headset much of the time is how comfortable it is, though Olij has stated that he will get prescription lenses for the Frame.

Olij also showed off the Steam Frame UI whilst launching into Lepton Dev, a "container for running Android apps on Linux devices such as the Steam Frame", and it looks very similar to the Steam Deck’s, which doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

Olij also refers to a "Squeeze" function with the Steam Frame controllers, which appears to be set to a grabbing function. This could lead to more natural-feeling interactions with objects in games. "Squeeze touch" and "Squeeze click" are also listed, but their functions are not.

They also refrain from making comparisons to the Meta Quest 3, as he stipulates that he is "not doing a hardware review".

All in all, the Steam Frame is shaping up to be a very exciting headset, and has certainly won the favour of a notable developer whose job is preparing a game engine to play nice with VR, which is very promising.

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