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It's been nearly six years since Valve released the Index, a PC gaming VR headset that's still praised today as one of the best ever made. In that time, the VR landscape has changed massively though, and devices from the Valve Index era that launched with motion tracking base stations and frustrating cables are starting to show their age.
It's been rumored for a while that Valve is secretly working on a successor to the Valve Index, and new leaks put it in position to challenge the best VR headsets on the market today. Codenamed "Deckard", the headset is touted to be a standalone, wireless device like the Meta Quest 3 or Pico 4 Ultra. It's also got controllers with the codename "Roy", so Apple Vision Pro's hand-tracking approach doesn't seem to be what Valve is chasing.
According to the latest speculation from Twitter user Gabe Follower, who has a track record of knowing Valve's upcoming projects, the Valve Index successor could hit the shelves before the end of 2025 and might cost $1,200. This would put it in a more expensive category of headset, way more than the Meta Quest 3S's affordable $299 asking price, but only $200 more than HTC Vive's Focus Vision headset. For that money, you'll supposedly get the headset, controllers, and some "first-party games or demos", according to Gabe Follower.
Deckard is also rumored to run on a refined version of SteamOS, the Steam Deck OLED's operating system. That'd definitely give Meta's Horizon OS a run for its money, and according to some sources, the new Valve device would put a big emphasis on being able to play flatscreen games on a virtual big screen like PSVR 2 and its excellent cinematic mode.
While the first Valve Index was all about tethering to a PC to experience immersive games with a visually lossless connection, a standalone device in 2025 would most likely remove separate tracking modules, and rumors say that while tethering to a gaming PC would be possible on the new headset, a big emphasis would be put on wireless PC streaming to take cables out of the equation.
Valve's Roy controllers were first leaked three months ago when VR Twitter leaker SadlyItsBradley found SteamVR driver files attesting to their existence. These look very reminiscent of Meta and Pico's latest generation of VR controllers and abandon the tracking rings of the original Valve Index.
Interestingly, Gabe Follower notes that even at a price of $1,200, the headset would be sold at a loss, which goes hand-in-hand with what many competitors say of Meta's Quest headsets. It also suggests that the innards of the Valve Index sequel might be on the beefier side, which suits the PC market it'd likely attract first and foremost.
While there's been no confirmation from Valve about these leaks, or indeed the existence of a "Valve Index 2", it's been a known project for a while, with Valve CEO Gabe Newell even saying at a QNA in New Zealand in 2021 that his company was "making big investments in new headsets".
Do you need to beef up your gaming setup before the second Valve headset arrives? Check out the best gaming PCs, the best CPU for gaming, and the best RAM for gaming.
