If there's one sad but universal rule in tech, it's that every developer, publisher, manufacturer, or personality will inevitably betray your trust or admiration for them.
Perhaps you encountered it when Konami remade Metal Gear Solid 3 as a Pachinko machine, the moment Xbox sold its soul to PlayStation, or the weird way Mark Zuckerberg drank water that one time. Regardless, heartbreak is practically an inevitability.
However, every rule has an exception. My personal exception is Valve — which, for ethical reasons, I'll freely admit may have something to do with the thousands of dollars I've saved thanks to various Steam Sales.
Of course, no company is perfect, and I can't speak for the people within it. For all I know the Valve headquarters breaks into a fervor on Friday evenings as everybody gathers around a TV to watch illegal dogfights.
What I do know is that Valve has yet to do me wrong on the hardware or software front. I've barely been able to express how enamored I've become with Valve's Steam Deck, and now escalating rumors of the company's plans to release a new VR headset in 2025, codenamed Deckard, have me practically doing backflips as I make heart eyes at the poster of Gabe Newell hanging on my office wall.
(This is hyperbole, I don't have a poster of Gabe Newell on my office wall. It's a cardboard cutout and it stands in the corner of my kitchen.)
I have been, and always will, be a proud champion of VR — thoroughly believing that gaming's future will heavily lean into this medium in good time. I'll save you the same old spiel you'll hear elsewhere about Valve's Deckard potentially being VR's big moment to break into the mainstream because VR headsets already are mainstream.
Instead, I'll simply say this: my time with the Steam Deck has been so good, that even if Deckard is little more than the same handheld with a head strap, I'm still buying one. Here's why.
Valve Deckard: More than a Steam Deck for your face
Thankfully, Valve's Deckard is expected to be so much more. The rumored headset is claimed to include a split-1440p resolution display with a 120Hz refresh rate, running on a modified version of the Steam Deck's SteamOS platform, tailored to retool SteamVR as a standalone experience.
That means on-device PCVR gaming, free from your desktop umbilical. Better still, one reputable tech tipster claims that Deckard will run regular flat-screen games too (like the Steam Deck), using VR to project them onto large virtual screens for maximum immersion.
The cherry on top? Unlike Valve's previous VR offering, the Index, the Deckard reportedly uses inside-out body tracking, meaning you won't need to invest in expensive base stations for accurate upper body tracking.
It sounds fantastic. So, what's the catch? Well, current rumors suggest that the Valve Deckard VR headset may launch with a $1,200 price tag — far above the affordable Goldilocks zone claimed by Meta's Quest headsets.
Can't afford Deckard? Check out this $300 PCVR alternative
Rumored to cost $1,200, Valve's Deckard headset sets a pretty high bar for entry. However, that's not to say you can't recreate a similar experience to the one laid out earlier for far less.
Meta's Quest 3 and Quest 3S headsets cost considerably less, with the Quest 3S retailing for just $299, while also expanding on the Deckard's core features with full-color mixed reality passthrough — though, admittedly, offering lesser performance and resolution as Deckard rumors suggest.
It's a similarly standalone device, but that will restrict you to games and apps available within the Horizon Store. While the Horizon Store library is nothing to sneer at, it is restrictive, and the Quest 3 family's affordability has resulted in a younger population with less cash to burn, causing it to lean into free-to-play and discount titles that risk making HorizonOS the VR version of Android and iOS' shovelware amusement park app stores.
As standalone as it may be, Quest headsets are made all the more better by PCVR. Not only can you play PCVR games on Quest headsets, but you can also use the Steam Link app to stream PCVR games from SteamVR directly to your headset.
While it's a little "The Valve Deckard we have at home," for all but the most hardcore of VR enthusiasts, this is a pretty affordable route to PCVR gaming with a few extra mixed reality bells and whistles for bragging rights.
PCVR needs a 'Steam Deck' moment
Before the Meta Quest 2 rolled around in 2020, it felt like VR had been stuck in early access for years, but that headset's unrivaled success painted a positive picture for the medium. Has it lived up to that hope? Somewhat.
The Quest 3 and Quest 3S were major milestones in VR's continued push for acceptance, but some five months on from the latter's release and it feels like that momentum has stalled harder than a particularly anxious learner driver at their first set of traffic lights.
I'm sure that's exactly the kind of feeling the pre-2022 handheld gaming PC community would resonate with, right up until the moment one healthily bearded Gabe Newell stepped into the market and turned everything on its head.
Now you can hardly move around in the tech space without needing to kick several variations of handheld out of your path, lest you intend to ski-doo your way around on a pair of ROG Allys.
While VR doesn't necessarily need Deckard to spur a new wave of hardware, its focus on PCVR gaming and making that vast and varied landscape of titles available to even more people (especially those who don't own a powerful VR-ready laptop or desktop computer) is vitally needed to ensure momentum continues to build.
Valve's Deckard is unlikely to be the headset that brings VR to the forefront of gaming. However, the company's effort to push PCVR to the forefront of accessibility may go a long way to promote the same mentality from others, marking an important stepping stone to the larger VR goal. One I hope to be a part of.
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