Steam Frame pre-orders are live: from 1,049 euros, Half-Life: Alyx included, on sale September 18

Valve has finally put a number to the question hanging over Steam Frame since its announcement: the company's new virtual reality headset can be pre-ordered starting today, with a starting price of 1,049 euros, and sales begin this Friday, September 18. According to Vandal, there will be two versions, 256 GB and 1 TB, and both include a copy of Half-Life: Alyx at no extra cost.

The news matters for two reasons. The first is obvious: Valve owns Steam, the platform where a large part of our community plays, and every time it makes a move in hardware the rest of the industry takes note. The second is the message the price sends: more than a thousand euros for a headset is not a play for the mass market; it is a statement that Frame is aimed at an enthusiast audience willing to pay to dive fully into Valve's ecosystem.

What you need to know

• Steam Frame pre-orders open today; final purchases become available on Friday, September 18.
• Two storage configurations: 256 GB for 1,049 euros and 1 TB for 1,279 euros.
• Both versions come with Half-Life: Alyx as a free bonus, Valve's flagship virtual reality title.
• Valve is reusing the reservation list and queue system it already used for Steam Machine and Steam Controller to manage demand.

Prices and versions: a 230-euro gap for storage

The only difference between the two models mentioned by the source is internal storage capacity. That leads to a clear takeaway: the jump from 256 GB to 1 TB costs 230 euros, an extra that only makes sense if you plan to install a large library directly on the headset. For anyone who will rotate between a handful of titles, the base version is the logical entry point.

Including Half-Life: Alyx is no small detail. It remains Valve's strongest argument for convincing anyone that virtual reality is worth it, and bundling it with the hardware guarantees every buyer gets at least one top-tier experience from minute one.

The reservation system: the queue is the norm again

Valve doesn't sell hardware like everyone else. With Steam Machine and Steam Controller it already used a reservation list where users sign up and then receive their turn to complete the purchase, and Steam Frame follows the same scheme. As Vandal reports, the goal is to manage demand as smoothly as possible, which in practice tends to avoid the chaos of sellouts and scalping that comes with any highly anticipated launch.

For users, this has a practical consequence: signing up today doesn't guarantee having the headset at home on Friday, but it does secure a spot in line. If you're genuinely interested, it's worth reserving as soon as possible rather than waiting until the 18th, because by then the queue will already have formed.

Our take

Here at the Underworld Lordz editorial team we have mixed feelings. On one hand, Valve betting on virtual reality again with a product of its own is good news for the medium: no one has more power to push a catalog and a platform than the company that controls Steam. On the other, 1,049 euros as an entry point is a very high barrier, especially for a community like ours, spread across the Americas and Europe, where a figure in euros weighs even more depending on the country you're looking at it from.

For competitive players, virtual reality remains secondary territory. The games that pay our bills in tournaments don't live inside a headset, and a headset costing over a thousand euros is hard to justify compared to a PC, monitor or peripheral upgrade that directly impacts performance. For content creators the math is different: the novelty, the Valve name and Half-Life: Alyx included are guaranteed video and stream material, and there the outlay can pay for itself if the channel has an audience.

In short: Steam Frame is a purchase for enthusiasts with a budget and for creators who need to be part of the conversation, not a product we would recommend today to the average player on the team. We'll wait to see what else the ecosystem offers before changing our minds.

What do you think?

Valve has put its price on the table and the queue is open. Tell us in the team chat or on our Discord: are you going to pre-order Steam Frame, wait for a discount, or is virtual reality simply not part of your competitive plans?