VALVE INDEX
THE NEW BREED of virtual reality headsets are mostly focused on an experience that you can tidy away once you’ve done your BeatSaber for the day. But what if you want to immerse yourself in room-scale VR games? The Valve Index, released in 2019, is still one of the most impressive headsets on the market. Its style is somewhat more brutalist and functional than the new generation but that’s because Valve understands that you won’t care what it looks like when you’re wearing it. VR gaming isn’t about looking like you’re in your own lifestyle ad.
However, the bar for entry for the Index is significantly higher than for most headsets. Access to Steam’s selection of virtual reality offerings isn’t just a matter of handing over $1,800 for the headset, base stations, and controllers, but also clearing a room and investing in a gaming PC powerful enough to deliver the visuals the Index is capable of.
But once you’ve got your room ready, powered each base station, and plugged in all three cables into your beast of a gaming PC, nothing looks or feels like the Valve Index as you disappear into VR. As you’d expect from the gaming leviathans, everything has been engineered for sheer immersion. The Index has dual LCD screens with 1440x1600 pixels per eye, exceptional clarity and brightness, and a 120Hz refresh rate. And, if your PC can take it, there’s even a 144Hz experimental mode for your eyes to feel even more intimidatingly immersed in the whopping 130° field of view. Gone are the tunnels of old-school VR headsets—the Index makes you feel like you’ve been literally dropped into a virtual world.
And Valve won’t be outdone on controllers. The Index Controllers work like hands, with 87 sensors to determine hand and finger positioning, motion, and pressure. Every movement of your digits is expertly tracked so you don’t feel like you’re holding controllers and instead can use your hands naturally to grip, feel and interact with the environment. This is especially impressive the first time you load up Half-Life:Alyx— a game that comes free with the Valve Index. Interacting with this world by touching, prodding, and grabbing feels like the VR future we were promised.
Where other VR headsets rely on the triggers of what are effectively standard pads, the Valve controllers can be squeezed to grip things. Because they are effectively worn instead of held, these natural interactions mean VR universes become more inviting, avoiding the need for spending hours with white knuckles. Add the base stations for full motion tracking and the Index still delivers the most natural VR experience. However, the setup to get there isn’t as smooth as squeezing a trigger in Half-Life:Alyx.