Valve's Steam Frame VR Headset Opens Reservations at $1,059, Bundles Half-Life: Alyx

Valve has officially opened reservations for the Steam Frame, its first new VR headset since the 2019 Valve Index. The standalone device was revealed alongside the Steam Machine and Steam Controller back in November 2025, and its pricing and pre-order details landed on September 14, 2026, roughly a year after the initial tease.

The Steam Frame comes in two configurations. The 256GB kit starts at $1,059 USD, while the 1TB kit starts at $1,299 USD. Both ship with the headset and the new Steam Frame controllers, and Valve says the accessories — including a 45W power supply, an ergonomic kit, and a replacement kit — are sold separately at checkout. The PSU costs $29 on its own. Headline specs include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, 16GB of unified LPDDR5X RAM, 2160x2160 per-eye LCD displays with a 72 to 144Hz refresh rate, four outward-facing tracking cameras, and a 6GHz wireless dongle that streams games from a PC.

The biggest surprise is software: Valve has ported Half-Life: Alyx to ARM64 so it runs natively on the Steam Frame without a PC. The standalone build was made possible by foveated rendering using the headset's built-in eye-tracking cameras, according to Valve, and is bundled with every headset. Road to VR reports the standalone port is shipping alongside the headset, while The Verge and Digital Foundry both detail a year of additional Vulkan driver and SteamVR work that made the native ARM build possible. Engadget also notes the headset will not need a high-power USB-C charger since the PSU is sold separately.

Valve is using a randomized reservation lottery, not a first-come, first-served pre-order, mirroring the system it rolled out for the Steam Machine launch. Customers can sign up for either model through September 17 at 10:00 AM PT on the official Steam Frame page. After the cutoff, Valve randomizes the queue, emails customers the same day with either a reservation slot or a waitlist position, and begins sending out the first batch of purchase emails on September 18. Units are limited to one per household, with eligibility requiring a Steam account in good standing and at least one prior purchase before April 27, 2026.

The pricing sits well above Valve's original sub-$999 target from the November 2025 reveal, a shift the company has previously attributed to the global memory and storage shortage that also pushed the Steam Machine to $1,049 at launch. According to The Verge, the Steam Frame reservation page is now live on the official Steam Store, with regional pricing running from £889 in the UK to €1,049 in the eurozone and AUD 1,609 in Australia.

The reservation page is live now on Steam at https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamframe, with Road to VR confirming the pricing structure and The Verge covering the standalone Half-Life: Alyx port and the wider hardware lineup.