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👍 Valve has now certified 20 games for the Steam Frame headset
📈 It comes as part of a large verification program for games for the device
👏 Games certified so far range from Portal 2 to Balatro and Valve’s own VR showcase titles
🙌 Valve is positioning the headset to be just as adept as playing VR games as it is your entire Steam library
It’s become increasingly evident that the Steam Frame is almost ready to be released based on the sheer amount of work Valve has been putting in to certify games for its VR headset.
As per Steam Hardware Updates on X, more games are being verified each day for the headset, and with the latest batch, it takes the running total to 20 games in Valve’s ‘Great on Frame’ category.
The recently launched ‘Great on Frame’ category denotes games Valve has certified for the headset, whether that’s being played standalone or 2D over streaming.
The rush of verified Steam Frame games started a few weeks ago when the headset got its first verified game – Portal 2 – and Valve then verified its own VR showcase games for the headset with Aperture Hand Labs and The Lab.
Valve also verified three more games for the headset as part of its seemingly ever-increasing total, and we’ve also seen one of the best flat screen games come to Steam Frame with the recent certification of Balatro.
The interesting thing about these games is that Valve has certified both traditional VR games and flat-screen 2D titles, such as Portal 2 and Balatro, signifying that the headset will be just as adept at playing both.
We know Valve has been working on the headset’s “Gamepad Mode” with a new SteamVR update, which is designed primarily for using standard gamepads with the headset’s window manager and for playing non-VR games.
With this revelation, data miners concluded that “Gamepad Mode” has its own UX, plus that the Steam Controller can also be fully tracked, and it works optionally for the Steam Frame’s own motion controllers.
We’re now up to 18 shipments as Valve imported a further 19 metric tonnes of the device into its US warehouse as part of one of the more recent updates, which Steam Hardware Updates thought equated to “tens of thousands of Steam Frame units in box ready for shipment”, as it keeps getting stock ready for the hotly anticipated Steam Frame pre-order.
It seems the headset could launch at virtually any moment in the next few weeks, given that we’ve got a healthy array of games certified and Valve is putting further finishing touches to the operating system.
Up next: Best Steam Machine settings for Palworld
Reece Bithrey is a journalist with bylines for Trusted Reviews, Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED, and graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in International History and Politics in 2023.