The Valve Index

At the end of March Half-life: Alyx was released. As a somewhat early adopter of VR, I was eagerly waiting for a high budget, triple A title. Don’t get me wrong, there are a ton of excellent experiences out there, but the market was really missing that full, fat game. Alyx released and about a day later I decided to upgrade my old HTC Vive to a Valve Index.

Before I get into the why, let’s take a quick trip down memory lane. Four years ago I jumped to preorder a Vive. This was going to be the future of gaming. 1200 Canadian dollars and a few months later my Vive arrived. Honestly it really did feel like the future of gaming. I had a small room-scale setup in my parents’ basement and showed off those next generation experiences to everyone I could. There were bugs, but it was easily worth the money.

Years have gone by now, and life changes. I don’t play games as much as I did. Every once in a while I still invite a bunch of friends over to my place, and we have a night of VR. Did I get 1200 dollars worth of time out of the Vive? No. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

So here we are in 2020. Alyx was just released and I was playing it on my trusty old Vive. I had followed the news of the Valve Index, but honestly the specs didn’t seem like much of an improvement over the Vive. Shortly after starting Alyx my right wand trackpad started acting up. The next day I impulsively ordered an Index. I opted for the full kit and would sell or give away my old Vive. If you’re going big, you might as well go all the way.

The Index finally arrived just this last Wednesday. The knuckles controllers are amazing, and are indeed a huge improvement over the Vive wand. The headset itself is an even bigger improvement to me. The headset is more comfortable, and the built in speakers are incredible. You can hear the world around you, but are also completely immersed in the game world. The lenses are also a huge jump forward. The screen door effect is largely reduced, and text is much more legible. Everything just looks better, and has a better clarity and less fresnel glare. The headset is actually comfortable to use too. I had bought a few VR Covers for the Vive to make it more comfortable, but the Index is good to go out of the box.

There are some drawbacks though. The screens are not OLED this time around, and you really do notice that in dark scenes. The field of view also feels smaller. Once you start playing you won’t notice it, but it stuck out to me coming from the Vive.

The controllers are really incredible, but sadly it seems like Valve has some work to do in the QA department. I have received a bummed right controller.. The right trigger feels fine, and has an audible click when fully depressed, but the controller does not register a full trigger click. This isn’t a huge problem for most games, but it certainly isn’t a good look after a few months shipping delay. Using the gravity gloves in Alyx isn’t consistent due to the trigger, and No Man’s Sky is unplayable without rebinding the right trigger click. It is really, really disappointing.

I have started the RMA process, but that is never a fun experience. Valve was quick to respond to my support ticket, but once I get my RMA details I will be down a controller until they manage to send one back. My last experience with doing an RMA was awful, so I hope Valve had this down a bit better than Corsair does.

So, is the Valve Index worth an upgrade from an original Vive? I think so. It is an improvement in almost every way. It is more comfortable, makes everything look better, and has amazing controllers. Just be aware there might still be some QA issues that Valve needs to work out.