Gears of War: E-Day (2026) has only been out for a little over two weeks now, and there’s already a PC VR mod in the works to get you up close and personal with the Locust Horde.
A free mod being created by ‘rockonthehill‘ is set to bring full VR support for the entire campaign.
Items already crossed off the list include full stereo rendering, full-body IK, manual reloads, manual weapon switching, two-handed aiming, the ability to fight from cover, and take on the gunner position when in the King Raven. Check out the video below to see it in action:
Notably, the mod is also only intended for the single-player campaign right now, and not online coop, rockonthehill says.
And the mod is admittedly still an early work in progress as well, so there’s no telling when we’ll see its GitHub repo, which is likely be a fork of Praydog’s UEVR mod for Unreal Engine games.
Still, there is active development going on, so all signs point to imminent release. Future updates are said to include Lancer chainsaw (no canned animations), physical melee, colliders for hands and weapons, and a real working scope for Longshot.
We’ll get to see all of that in its next feature drop video soon, rockonthehill says, noting the mod will be free when it releases at some point in the future.
This follows a veritable explosion of PC VR mods, many of which have been a direct result of AI-assisted vibe coding, which has helped modders tackle the complex work of bringing VR support to games never actually designed for it.
While you wait, check out how to find nearly every PC VR mod in one place, which includes free mods for games like Titanfall 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Metro 2033 Redux, and more.
Snap announced that actor and producer Robert Downey Jr. will work alongside the company’s augmented reality team to develop original content, Lens experiences, hardware collaborations, and more for its SPECS AR glasses.
The News
Robert Downey Jr. has joined the company’s Specs team as honorary Chief Customer Experience Officer (CCEO), which the company says will help “guide customers to understand and imagine what’s possible with SPECS.”
The company says the Iron Man star will work across “different parts of the SPECS organization to explore new capabilities, shape new Lens experiences and develop original content.” Downey Jr. will also collaborate on hardware and in-person experiences, the company says.
Courtesy Snap
“Trying is believing. Having tested practically every wearable tech that’s come to market in the last 20 years, and been largely unimpressed, I was absolutely sold on SPECS within 40 seconds,” said Downey Jr. “The applications are endless. Families can share experiences instead of hunching over devices, skills can be honed, big business can streamline development. In short, it delivers on the promise of AR glasses made by a certain techno optimist superhero I portrayed. Life imitates art – imitates life! I’ve never experienced the confident, warm and creatively inviting atmosphere that Evan has cultivated at SPECS anywhere else in the tech sector. Wait’ll you see what we create for you to enjoy.”
This follows last month’s big Specs event, where the company unveiled a host of new software and partnerships for the device, chief of which was Specs Intelligence, an anticipatory AI service that surfaces contextual information.
Snap also revealed immersive entertainment streaming, Spotify, interactive Harry Potter experiences, NBA/WNBA training tools, multiplayer games, navigation, translation, and 3D shopping.
As the company’s first consumer-oriented pair of AR glasses, Specs is expected to ship sometime this fall in the US, UK and France starting at $2,195, with an optional cellular charging case bundle costing $2,395.
My Take
As reported by Mixed in June (via Skarred Ghost), Robert Downey Jr. was offered some $100 million in company stockto essentially try to make Specs look cool. The details of that report still haven’t been verified, and it wasn’t specified whether that included stock in Snap, or in the now-separate Specs entity.
Still, having played Tony Stark for nearly two decades now, Downey Jr. is in a unique position to relate to consumers and help them understand what augmented reality actually is, and what it isn’t. And let’s face it, ‘honorary CCEO’ really just means he’s a high-profile brand ambassador, or long-term marketing asset.
To boot, Downey Jr. launched a collection of short videos showing Specs in action, which the company debuted as adverts during the New York Knicks vs. Philadelphia 76ers game on October 20th, with plans to release more during Game 1 of the World Series on October 23th.
It shows him using Specs as a private screen, golf tutor, tracing guide for a portrait—the sort of not too far out things sport-watching middle America can latch onto. One fairly hyperbolic video though should raise some eyebrows at what the company, and Downey Jr., are ultimately trying to achieve with Specs:
While Specs may turn out to be the best AR platform consumers will be able to get their hands on in the near future, it’s far off from replacing one, let alone a table-full of devices Downey Jr. throws in the trash for his iconoclastic “this changes everything” moment.
I’m not old enough to have ever actually seen one before, but it all reminds me a bit of IBM Simon from 1994. Impressive, expensive, not really at all for consumers, and more of a precursor of things to come. I don’t think we’ll have to wait 10 more years for AR to have its iPhone moment, although I wouldn’t expect it from a first-gen consumer device either.
I get it though. Robert Downey Jr. can say almost anything (but the name ‘Iron Man’ or ‘Tony Stark’, since he doesn’t own the IP), and America will listen. Whatever the case, I’m just hoping the next spot doesn’t include any whales leaping out of gym floors.
Steam Next Fest is live, going from now until October 26th and serving up gads of PC VR demos to play.
We’ve counted 42 VR game demos currently available for download, and among the bunch are a surprising number of greats.
If you’re not sure where to start first though, you should definitely check out VR co-op heist game PAYDAY: Aces High from Fast Travel Games, town-builder strategy game Outlanders VR from Mucho Games, and co-op extraction game DRIFTERS: Blackout Crew from Salmi Games.
OpenXR is an open, royalty-free standard which provides a single, unified interface for developing VR and AR applications. Most XR platforms support it—excluding Apple, which uses its own APIs for Vision Pro. While that hasn’t changed, OpenXR seems to have taken a page out of Apple’s playbook with a new multitasking spatial app framework.
The Khronos Group, which leads development on OpenXR, announced it’s set to roll out a set of extensions soon that include new “spatial containers.” Spatial containers are system-managed spaces where apps can display XR content, similar to how traditional apps draw 2D content within windows on a desktop.
As seen in the short clip below, this will essentially allow for apps to switch between a “bounded” mode for multitasking and an “immersive” mode that takes up the full screen, The Khronos Group says.
It’s admittedly very similar to how visionOS handles multitasking via its Shared Space function, which is basically a spatial desktop that allows multiple 3D applications to live side-by-side and be moved around by the user. Apple Vision Pro has had this feature since launch in 2024.
This comes in contrast to how multitasking works on Quest today, wherein only one spatial app can run at a time, albeit alongside system-level stuff, such as the dashboard, browser, and other multitasked 2D windows.
The Khronos Group says the new extensions have been ratified and published, with implementations expected to begin rolling out across the OpenXR ecosystem during 2026.
Granted, its release doesn’t mean all existing headsets will immediately support it, although it’s a good bet we’ll begin seeing implementations soon from the cadre of OpenXR-supported headsets, which thus far include Meta Quest, SteamVR-compatible PC VR headsets and Steam Frame, Android XR-based headsets, Varjo, Magic Leap, and XREAL glasses.
PAYDAY: Aces High, the VR game set in the Payday universe, is officially set to launch across Quest, PC VR headsets, and Steam Frame next month.
Payday: Aces High is an upcoming VR co-op heist game from Fast Travel Games which lets up to four players take on some pretty classic heisting: infiltrating banks, museums, and even a luxury penthouse apartment.
Like all Payday games, you can also build out your own unique loadout—weapons, gadgets and special skills—as your team decides to go in hard and fast, or with a more tactical approach.
Now, Fast Travel Games says Payday: Aces High is coming November 5th, priced at $25, which you can now wishlist on Steam and Quest. Notably, the Steam version includes both the PC VR version and the Steam Frame native version for standalone gameplay.
Check out the new gameplay trailer below:
You won’t have to wait until November 5th to play the game though. The studio is also holding its final playtest, which runs from today until October 26th, with a Steam demo available as part of Steam Next Fest. Players can also join on Quest 3/3S.
Fast Travel Games notes that players who join the final playtest will receive an exclusive in-game Kitty Mask in the full game when it launches next month. Check out the game’s website to learn more.
Valve’s Steam Frame is barely out the door, but now data mining has reportedly surfaced that an OLED version may already in the works.
The News
As reported by Steam Frame Hub, Valve may be working on a new version of Steam Frame, which much like Steam Deck, may include OLED panels instead of LCD.
The codename ‘Plano’ has appeared in Valve’s publicly released Steam Frame kernel source code, describing a ‘Deckard’ (codename for Steam Frame) with a 3,552 × 3,840 per eye resolution OLED, and refresh rate of up to 90Hz, and 120Hz experimental mode.
That comes in contrast to Steam Frame’s 2,160 × 2,160 per eye resolution LCD panel, which includes 72-120Hz refresh rate (144Hz experimental).
Courtesy Steam Frame Hub
Steam Frame Hub maintains that while native pixel counts are impressively high, essentially the same as Samsung Galaxy XR, the default resolution appears to be half that: 1,776 × 1,920.
That would essentially allow Valve to hit roughly the same performance target as the standard Steam Frame, as the kernel source code appears to show Plano uses the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset as the current model.
Development on the repository reportedly continued through October 2nd, 2026, weeks after Steam Frame pre-orders opened on September 14th. That suggests the project remained active after the headset’s launch, although it doesn’t establish whether Plano is a separate product or an experimental hardware configuration.
My Take
Valve may well be following the same playbook as Deck, which was first released in February 2022 with an LCD version, followed by an OLED version in November 2023. Still, there are a few possible explanations beyond a mid-generation Steam Frame OLED refresh.
An alt display config could have been evaluated during development, and subsequently abandoned. Valve may also be simply internal testing right now, which doesn’t mean it will necessarily be productized—soon, or ever.
Road to VR
Notably, the name Deckard appeared more or less the same way, albeit in 2021. That’s ‘Valve Time’ for you, so hoping for a speedy release of an OLED version of Steam Frame really isn’t something I’d count on right now.
As it is, Steam Frame backorders have already stretched in 2027. If Valve wants to follow the same playbook as Deck, the company would ideally need to ramp up production, catch up with demand, make it available without reservations, and establish strong appetite for another Steam Frame before it can release anything else. A lot of that hinges on the device’s popularity, which still remains to be seen since there are still so few in the wild.
XREAL today announced XREAL 1 Pro+, a hardware refresh of its One Pro flagship AR glasses.
Launching today at $599, Xreal 1 Pro+ includes a modest set of improvements over the original One Pro, which launched in early 2025. Principally, Xreal 1 Pro+ includes brighter displays, as well as improvements to spatial viewing and comfort.
Like One Pro, the new model includes XREAL’s X1 spatial computing chip, three degrees of freedom (3DOF), 57-degree field of view (FOV), and the same 1,920 × 1,080 per eye resolution via Sony 0.55″ micro-OLEDs.
However with the 1 Pro+ hardware refresh, the display now reaches up to 1,200 nits of peak brightness, up from 700 nits peak brightness. It also adds AI-driven high dynamic range (AI HDR) to improve perceived image quality across supported content.
XREAL 1 Pro+ | Courtesy XREAL
Notably, Xreal’s marketing imagery shows the glasses without a cable, however this is not a standalone device, as the glasses tether to external devices via USB-C cable with DP Alt Mode, such as laptops, mobile devices, and game consoles.
And while the body of the device is seemingly unchanged from the older One Pro, the new 1 Pro+ introduces a newly designed ergonomic nose pad system, which the company says will “improve wearing stability and comfort while helping users maintain a consistent and complete field of view.”
Additionally, Xreal 1 Pro+ is getting an fps increase its automatic 2D-to-3D content conversion, from 30 now to 60fps, which should make converted 3D content more fluid.
You can find Xreal 1 Pro+ available for purchase starting today at XREAL.com, priced at $599, with global retail stores to be added later.
Here’s a quick comparison chart, detailing what’s the same and what’s changing on the Xreal 1 Pro+:
