A lot of the kinks in virtual reality hardware and software have been ironed out, and Valve has decided to jump into the front end of the current generation of immersive experiences with the Index VR head-mounted display. The original reveal of the Valve Index included plans to reveal more in May, but we have a price and official release date a bit sooner. The Valve Index will ship June 28 and the complex VR kit with the headset, controllers, and two base stations will cost $1,000.
Individually, you can get the Valve Index VR HMD for $500. The controllers are $280, and you can get them bundled with the Index for $750 to save a few bucks. The Valve Index Base Station’s price is $150 and is compatible with any headset with support for SteamVR 2.0 like the Index and HTC Vive Pro.
The specs for the Valve Index place it firmly in the second generation of PC-tethered VR headsets with performance rivaling the similarly priced HTC Vive Pro.
The devices that were formerly known as “Knuckles” are now officially known as the Valve Index controllers. As described on the official webpage, the controllers are “designed from the ground up to enable natural interactions, high-fidelity hand presence, and long-term comfort.” The Boneworks experimental project from Stress Level Zero, which you can see in a video below, shows off what the controllers are capable of.
The Valve Index will be compatible with SteamVR content, but there’s sure to be a few major titles released at or around launch to convince enthusiasts to pick this up. UploadVR reports that the VR headset’s flagship game is coming in 2019 and will be compatible with any hardware with SteamVR support. There have been rumors that Valve is working on something related to Half-Life, but we’ll have to wait and see just what’s in store. It’s highly unlikely it’s Half-Life 3, but we can dream.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.