It’s hard to get tired of Valve’s SteamVR Home when the company keeps pumping out high-quality spaces like Gulping Goat and Candy Emporium as of late. Now on Steam Workshop, the company’s open marketplace for environmental additions and asset packs, Valve has pushed out a new environment called ‘Winter Peak’ that puts you in a frosty winter wonderland befitting the season.

Winter Peak was produced in collaboration with VR studio Scraggy Rascal Games, which also had a hand in Valve’s latest SteamVR Home environments Candy Emporium and Gulping Goat.

Here’s Valve’s description of Winter Peak:

Venture forth from the cozy warmth of the rover, and feel the frost in the air as you trek out onto the snowy bluff. You may find the local wildlife somewhat shy and elusive, so please maintain a respectful distance to avoid scaring them off.

Valve says in a news update that they’re making making Winter Peak available as an Asset Pack so that users can remix and create your own map using the models, textures, and sounds.

To get started making your own remixed Home environment using this and other Asset packs, check out this guide from Valve.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • mirak

    Useless

    • jj

      not useless, just simple and fun

    • Arcticu Kitsu

      How? There’s always something for everybody with this being able to invite new users or just curious users to enjoy this with others.

      • mirak

        We want a real game from Valve, not pocs.

        • Arcticu Kitsu

          Now, now, no need to tantrum. You’ll gain your “real” game in time once they figure out how to make proper games. They’re using this as a learning experience. They need to learn, and learning they are.. :D

          • CTRL + ALT + ECCHECCAZZO

            I dont’ think is about learning, other software house like rad, epic and many other have realized great games without all that “learning”. I think that Valve will realize new games (I mean… true games) only if forced. I hope they will create something interesting with the new valve headset (if that will someday exist)

            BTW: I love the new environment ^^

          • Arcticu Kitsu

            I was being overly polite giving them (Steam) the benefit of the doubt. I guess it is as you say they’re fiddling with the small things a little to much. And I do hope so as well.

            I”ll check the new world out in a bit now that I finally have time in between the Christmas retail madness. Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays! :)

    • Yes, very useless.

  • Raphael

    But this is the only VR content we see from Valve… Where is Portal 2 VR? Where is Half Life 2 VR? An environment for VR is like downloading a wallpaper background.

    • NooYawker

      I understand Valve is a private company so they do whatever they want, but enough already. They could have easily put our a VR port of HL2 and Portal. I swear when they release something it better be mind blowing!!

      • Raphael

        Exactly… They added VR support for HL2 and TF2 back in DK2 days… how much effort would it have taken to add VR controller support?

        Some people rave about the steam tech demo that valve uses to showcase Vive… I think it’s a great example of what could have been but ultimately it’s a collection of pointless minigames. I played once and haven’t gone back to. Bizarrely some rate that tech demo as the greatest VR experience ever.

        HL-2 was one of the best experiences in VR when I had my DK2… I even tried playing it again recently via Vorpx.

        When you learn about how Valve’s game development operates it all becomes clear… allowing developers to wander around and develop whatever game they personally happen to like. So clearly they no longer have any devs who like HL or portal.

        • jj

          right, i also just think the hype has already outdone what the game could ever be. At this point they couldn’t make something that would appeal to everyone’s expectations. so they might never do it just cause of that.

          • Raphael

            Yes, I had considered that a while back. Perhaps Gabe is scared of HL3 being a failure after so much hype and hoping from people.

            Given their gaming track history I doubt the game would fail but if none of the original developers are present then it could happen.

            I think the only way we’d get a HL3 is via some dedicated mod team.

          • Miganarchine Migandi

            There has been a lot on VNN about a Half-Life prequel for VR which would be easier for them story wise, I agree I think they are scared of failure and also do not know where to take the story, The Source engine is dated but they would have trouble pulling off the physics on Unreal engine + i think Epic would charge a f-tonne of money to use it as they are main rivals down the years.

          • Raphael

            Remember the pre-release vids for HL2 with barrel physics and landscape deformation? It was revolutionary at the time. Pretty mundane stuff these days. For an impact of that scale today you’d need Houdini 17 level FX.

          • Miganarchine Migandi

            I remember that well, I was a crazy keen HL modder at the time, seeing all the new features in the engine along with the new facial animation, I just thought making a single player mod for Half-life 2 just got a lot harder, Once I released my mod I gave up after that.

          • gothicvillas

            Could it be they want to release HL vr on their new headset? Maybe thats whay they are holding it up..

          • Raphael

            The leaked photo of the Valve VR units looked pretty close to finished. They didn’t appear to be prototypes. Valve working on 3 mysterious games… timed to launch with the new mysterious leaked headset… That would be big!

          • Miganarchine Migandi

            Very big what with Epic starting their own storefront it’s all kicking off in a good way for VR.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBFnoVr0_ck

        • mirak

          It should not have take much efforts because TF2 and Portal 2 already supports Razer Hydra.
          Even Left4dead 2 had Razer Hydra support but they never released it.

      • mirak

        Or Left for dead.
        I had a lot of fun playing Serious Sam 1 even if it’s ugly, be doesn’t need pretty, it needs game with a real length.

  • Mac

    Very cool to see them continue their experimentations so they can use these learnings for their real projects. The quality of the models, textures, and lighting is really great and fun to explore. I especially like the hidden creatures like the yeti.

    That said, I think they could improve the interaction mechanics somewhat. Opening doors and picking up objects is a bit cumbersome. In my experience using this with a Rift I was constantly fumbling through their inventory selections and scaling objects when I just wanted to be able to open a door or pick up an item.

    Would have loved to use the fishing rod to go fishing!

  • Raphael

    Valve VR hardware design is great. I just think they’re totally out-of-touch with VR software. SteamVR is improving but these environments are like something you’d expect from Disney or grandpa. They still force teleport in these environments. I’d love these cutesy environments if I was 7 years old.

  • I am not fond of these “Home” things. They are sort of a waste of time, especially compared to all of the games available. Anything that slows down my access to War Dust, or the space shooter I just started called Everspace, just annoys me. If my buddy is online and available to play, I want to get us into a game IMMEDIATELY. There’s zero interest between us in visiting each other’s “virtual homes”. :p

  • Lucidfeuer

    Great value, however I don’t think Valve is pushing it anywhere. But it’s nice to see recent games like Overwatch having influenced so many games/products in terms of map design.

  • sebrk

    For some reason SteamVR Home performance is in the shitter for me and I run a 2080Ti. No idea why this is as ai have no issues with other stuff.