Windows Mixed Reality to get SteamVR video games on November 15

The first wave of Windows Mixed Reality headsets should become much more fun to use next week. Indeed, Rolling Stone revealed yesterday that Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality platform will get access to Steam’s VR games on November 15. The open beta will welcome everyone owning one of the headsets from Acer, Asus, HP Lenovo, Dell and Samsung and a PC running the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.

As there are currently only around 60 VR apps and games available on Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality platform, opening access to Steam VR games should be a boon for users and developers. Rolling Stone had the chance to try out SteamVR with the freshly released Samsung Odyssey HMD, and here is how it will work:

The SteamVR bridge essentially shuttles people from Windows 10’s virtual reality Cliff House to Steam’s own virtual reality home. Once there, players can try out any of the SteamVR games they own with mostly good, but occasionally mixed results. The goal is to eventually make all games behave as they should, but Microsoft is still working through the occasional issue, so this is essentially an open beta.

The Steam VR catalog already includes high-profile titles such as Superhot VR, Batman: Arkham VR and Fallout 4 VR (to be released in December), and it’s great to see that all this content will soon be available with a Windows Mixed Reality headset. With their inside-out tracking technology, these headsets are also much easier to set up and use compared to the HTC Vive, the VR headset that the Taiwanese company co-developed with Valve.