Valve celebrates its 30th anniversary today, and this year the company has released the Steam Controller and the Steam Machine. However, the new VR project, Steam Frame, remains on the list of hardware the company promised to launch soon. In addition to the anniversary, today the team welcomes an engineering innovator in the VR space, Amanda Watson.
On a social media post, Amanda confirms that she has joined Valve to work on “various things, including VR (and Steam Frame).” Amanda brings quite the resume, having worked on companies such as Disney, Apple, and Oculus/Meta. On Oculus (now part of Meta), Amanda is credited as the creator of Air Link, where, according to her LinkedIn, she was the sole engineer for 13 months before its release. Air Link allows users to connect wirelessly from their VRs to their PCs via Wi-Fi. Basically, you can thank Amanda for bringing another option that allows you to use VR without cables distracting from the experience.
Another project Amanda created is CitraVR, a VR port of the Citra 3Ds emulator. The software for the Quest VR allowed users to play many Nintendo titles with an AR/VR perspective. Both of these projects perfectly align with features that the Steam Frame has promised to bring, such as supporting stand-alone play, a high-quality streaming experience, and Foveated Streaming, a new feature that optimizes detail where your eyes are looking.
Valve seems to continue its tradition of hiring and working with game modders and creators in the tech space. Just last week, they hired KirillSenzu, an artist who has worked for several popular games, including Overwatch and Dota 2. KirillSenzu has been making personal art projects for the characters of Valve’s new game Deadlock on his own, but now it seems the artist will be making official art for the title.
While Valve has not officially announced anything yet on the Steam Frame release date, last week, some files on the ARM Steam Client were discovered that included videos such as instructions and setup for the new VRs. But these were shortly taken down. However, these setup videos can only mean that a release date might be imminent, since Valve promised to release all their announced hardware this summer.
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