As first spotted by VR analyst and Valve watcher Brad Lynch, Valve appears to be actively working on the backend of Steam Frame’s store page, which now includes evidence the company may be giving away a copy of Half-Life Alyx to anyone who purchases a unit.
Lynch showed off a number of strings containing the following snippets: ‘AccountHardwarePromotions’, ‘HLAlyxPromoButtons’, and ‘Frame Alyx Promo’ among others, suggesting the $60 game will be bundled with Steam Frame as a part of a special promotion.
I bought Alyx when it was on sale for cheap, but still don’t have a headset I can play it on. And judging by the price of the steam machine, this headset is going to cost a fortune.
Hi me from last week!
I also was super curious about VR but didn’t want to spend a ton of money (I also have really strong prescription glasses and was worried about how I’d handle it).
I ended up buying on ebay a second hand Oculus Quest (2019 version) because they’ve made progress in de-Meta-ing and unlocking the bootloader.
$200 later, and I’ve been playing Alyx with some initial struggles, but overall it’s been great.
Hello again.
When you first said Occulus, I was going to reply that that’s a hard nope from me. But then I kept reading and had no idea people were working on unlocking it and getting Meta’s crapware out of there. I’ll have to take a look - thanks friend!
Even before the bootloader was unlocked Quest runs Android, supports sideloading, and can run Steam VR as its interface.
So you were never locked into Meta.
It is relatively cheap to buy a second hand HTC Vive or similar and those play Alyx just fine.