A new rumour suggests that Valve might be working on a new VR headset as well as a VR version of Half-Life.
This information comes from UploadVR whose sources have shared photos of what they claim is a prototype version of Valve’s new VR headset. Previously, Valve had leaned heavily on their support of the HTC Vive, but this information suggests that this will be a Valve-branded headset created by the studio. It’s not clear at this time what the potential release of this headset means for Valve’s relationship with HTC, but it’s worth noting that HTC and Valve teamed up to release a Vive Pro headset device earlier this year. It would be interesting to see Valve move to native hardware so quickly after the release of a high-end HTC headset.
What’s even more interesting is how similar this rumoured headset is to the Vive Pro. The headset’s field of view and resolution are fairly similar to existing HTC models, and it’s even being reported that Valve might ship the headset with their currently available “Knuckle” VR controllers. Put it all together, and it sounds like this initial model may be something of a baby step towards unique Valve headset hardware to come.
In lieu of any major technological innovations, this headset may instead get by on the appeal of its software. In fact, that same insider report suggests that Valve is already working on a VR version of Half-Life.
It’s not clear at this time what that VR game looks like, but it’s believed that Half-Life VR will either be a prequel, a spin-off, or a VR version of some existing Half-Life project. At the moment, it seems that the popular theory is that this game will serve as a kind of prequel to Half-Life 2. Even though all reports suggest that Valve is not interested in developing Half-Life 3 (the series’ former writer even leaked his version of that game’s story), we’ve heard rumours for months now that Valve would be interested in a VR project related to the Half-Life series.
The question now is whether or not that game will come out for the Vive, this Valve headset, both, or neither. We should know more in the coming months as more information on this headset becomes available.