A Quiet Hint That Steam Is Getting Into Android Apps
Virtual reality has always felt a bit like an exclusive club. Expensive headsets, fiddly cables, and a whole lot of setup just to miss your putt in VR mini golf. But Valve’s upcoming Steam Frame headset might be about to shake things up in a surprisingly friendly way.
The latest hint comes from an unexpected place: Walkabout Mini Golf, one of the more popular social VR games. A user on X called Brad Lynch dug through the game’s Steam changelist and spotted something very interesting. Among the usual tech updates was a new file entry: an Android .apk added to the game’s App Config, plus fresh OpenXR support.
That might sound like random dev stuff, but it could actually be huge. It suggests that Walkabout Mini Golf on Steam now secretly includes its Android app build. And more importantly, Lynch believes you will be able to access that Android version through the same Steam app ID. In simple terms, buy the game once on Steam and you may get both the PC version and the Android version bundled together.
Why does that matter? Because Steam Frame runs on an Arm chip and supports Android style .apk files. If Valve lets you grab the Android build of games you already own, that would make the headset a lot more attractive and a lot easier on your wallet.
How Steam Frame Wants To Run Your VR Games
The Steam Frame is not just another tethered PC headset. Valve is aiming for something much more flexible. The headset will reportedly support three different ways to play:
Streamed PC VR You run the game on your gaming PC and stream it to the headset over your network.
Emulated PC VR The headset uses its Arm chip to emulate a PC game through a translation layer called FEX, so it can run regular PC VR titles directly.
Native Arm apps The headset runs Android style .apk games designed to run on its hardware without any emulation.
The third option is the interesting one here. A native Android build is usually lighter, more efficient, and better tuned for mobile class chips than a fully emulated PC game. If you can install that .apk version straight from Steam using your existing purchase, Steam Frame suddenly looks much more user friendly.
Instead of paying twice for the same VR game on different platforms, you would have one library, one purchase, and multiple ways to play. Imagine buying Walkabout Mini Golf years ago to play on a Valve Index and then simply sliding into Steam Frame later and grabbing the native Android build at no extra cost.
Lynch suggests exactly that scenario: if you already own Walkabout on Steam, you may automatically get the Android version on Steam Frame launch day. According to his theory, it is all just an alternate branch under the same Steam app ID, not a separate store listing.
Cool Idea, But Not Official Yet
There is a catch. Neither Valve nor Walkabout’s developer Mighty Coconut has actually confirmed any of this. What we have right now is a changelist entry, some data mining, and an educated guess about Valve’s plans.
Game files can be weird. Developers often leave old or experimental builds buried in the data, like digital fossils. We have seen that before with the Oblivion remaster including large chunks of the original game, and Starfield releases shipping with traces of earlier builds still sitting in the folders. So the presence of an .apk file on Steam does not automatically guarantee players are meant to use it.
Still, this one feels different. The Android build is being hooked into App Config rather than just left lying around, and it arrives alongside OpenXR support, which is all about making VR and AR apps work more easily across lots of devices.
OpenXR is basically a unifying standard for different VR platforms. When a game adds OpenXR support, it is lining itself up to play nicely with a wider range of headsets and ecosystems. If you are trying to get a new headset like Steam Frame off the ground, that kind of compatibility is a big deal.
The combination of OpenXR plus an Android .apk makes a lot of sense for Valve. It gives them a way to pull in:
Existing PC VR games that can run through streaming or emulation.
Native Android builds that can run directly on the Arm chip for better performance.
Potentially even ports from other Android based VR platforms over time.
If Walkabout Mini Golf really is the first officially supported Android app on Steam, it could be a test case for how other VR devs handle Steam Frame builds. Buy the game once, get access to multiple versions under the hood, and let Steam handle which one runs best on your headset.
Of course, there is no guarantee this will turn into a new standard. Mighty Coconut might just be experimenting. Valve might change direction before launch. The Android build might stay hidden from regular users. But it is hard not to see the pattern forming. A wireless headset, an Arm chip that likes .apk files, OpenXR support, and now an Android version of a hit VR game sitting inside Steam itself.
For anyone who bounced off early VR because of price, wires, or the hassle of rebuying the same games on every new platform, that is a pretty exciting direction. Maybe Walkabout Mini Golf really will be the first step toward a more open, less painful VR library where your purchases follow you from headset to headset.
If that happens, the Steam Frame might be the device that finally makes VR feel less like a niche within a niche and more like just another fun way to play.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/vr-hardware/first-official-android-game-spotted-on-steam-suggests-you-wont-need-to-buy-games-twice-to-run-them-natively-on-the-steam-frames-own-chip/
