Image: Valve

It's the end of an era, and (hopefully) the start of another. Valve has announced that the Index, their 2019 VR headset, is being phased out in favor of the newer, shinier, wireless Steam Frame. While stock lasts, you can pick up the Index headset and controllers at a slim 20% discount, but those hoping for this to be an easy inroad to VR gaming might be disappointed. There's no complete package available here, with the tracking base stations (required by older VR hardware to track your position in the room) currently unavailable.

So, the market here seems mostly people who already have Index headsets and want to pick up additional backup hardware, especially as, even WITH the discount, the package of the headset, both controllers, and tether cable (and again, this lacks a vital part of the hardware package) comes close to £700. Given that the entire Steam Frame starter kit (for the 256gb version, at least) costs just shy of £900, you're not saving much at all. Such is the fate of PC hardware during the RAMpocalypse, I suppose.

There are much cheaper VR alternatives available, of course. For those willing to wade through the Facebook/Meta swamp (I wouldn't recommend it, but we live in a society), the Quest 3S still clocks in at around £300, and for those outside of America, a PICO 4 (my current headset, and roughly equivalent to the Quest 3) costs under £400, but you'll have to shop around a bit for that. Both of them double as self-contained VR systems - effectively wearable consoles - but can connect wirelessly to PC for high-end gaming, although I'd recommend splashing out an extra $20 for Virtual Desktop (a great little piece of software) to handle that connection for you.

So, the current state of VR is messy, to say the least. And yet there are thousands of VR games available on Steam, and VR ports and mods constantly being released. It's simultaneously hard to recommend any one piece of hardware... but at the same time, I still believe that everyone needs to play Titanfall 2 in VR. It really is that good.