The major update is here after a month in beta.
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Valve announced Wednesday that it has released SteamVR 2.0, launching the major update exactly a month after the surprise launch of the SteamVR 2.0 beta in September.
“In this release we’re bringing all of what’s new and exciting on the Steam platform into VR,” Valve says in a Steam post. “This is our first big step in a larger ongoing effort to better unify the Steam ecosystem for all users, providing a more consistent experience across devices. This update also allows us to add new Steam features in the future much faster and more frequently.”
SteamVR 2.0 has been a long time coming, with Valve saying in a 2019 year-in-review Steam post that it was “hard at work” on the update. Here are some of Valve’s highlights for what you’ll find in SteamVR 2.0, which match pretty closely to what Valve pointed to in September:
Most of the current features of Steam and Steam Deck are now part of SteamVR
Updated keyboard with support for dual-cursor typing, new languages, emojis, and themes
Integration of Steam Chat and Voice Chat
Improved Store that puts new and popular VR releases front and center
Easy access to Steam notifications
Interestingly, the update arrived without any sort of announcement of new hardware — Valve is rumored to be working on some kind of new VR headset, though it’s unclear what form it might take. A mystery gadget passed radio certification in South Korea in September, which could point toward a potentially imminent hardware announcement of some sort, VR headset or not. And Valve has also reportedly been developing a standalone VR headset codenamed “Deckard,” which, if released, would compete with Meta’s standalone Quest VR headsets.
