Steam VR Fest is underway with discounts and demos for headset fanciers

Hitman 3 at 60% off. No Man’s Sky at 50% off. Tetris Effect: Connected at 50% off. These are great games whether you play them in VR or not, so even if you don’t own a headset you might want to check out Steam’s VR Fest, which is live now until December 11th.

Like all Steam’s fests, this one offers discounts and demos on a themed collection of games. Valve ran a similarly VR-focused event in July last year.

This year’s fest is timed in part to coincide with the release of Steam VR 2.0, which refreshes the VR interface for browsing the Steam store and your library to bring it more in like with the desktop, Deck and Big Picture versions. It’s also coming days after the release of Steam Link on Meta Quest 2, 3 and Pro, which lets you stream games from your Steam library to one of the Facebook-adjacent wireless VR headsets.

As noted, there are plenty of games in the sale that have a VR mode, but which are not exclusively VR games. There are also demos for in-development VR games, such as Escape Simulator VR. I enjoyed playing its flatscreen equivalent earlier this year.

I’ll be honest, my Valve Index has collected dust for much of 2023. There are few new games that appeal to me, few that seem able to match the polish and nous of Valve’s own Half-Life: Alyx, and I’ve grown a little tired of Beat Saber (and therefore tired of life). Maybe I should use the Fest to drive me towards playing something new.