AltspaceVR is coming to Steam free to play, and its recommended spec names Steam Frame
AltspaceVR, the social VR platform Microsoft shut down on March 10, 2023, has a Steam store page again, this time with SideQuest Ltd. listed as developer and publisher. The page is headed "Coming Soon To Early Access" with a planned release date of October 2026, lists the app as free to play, and names OpenXR and Steam Frame in its recommended requirements.
SideQuest says AltspaceVR is playable in VR and in desktop mode, with shared multiplayer Worlds, avatars and spatial voice chat. Image: SideQuest
The minimum requirements are wider: OpenXR, PC VR and Steam Link. Steam gives no day in October, and the page says a headset is not needed at all, because "AltspaceVR works just fine on Desktop and Android without VR".
SideQuest says it plans to keep the app free
SideQuest rules out a price change on the way out of Early Access: "AltspaceVR is free to play and we currently plan for it to remain free after leaving Early Access." It is aiming for "around 6-12 months" in Early Access and says it does not "want to set an artificial deadline".
By SideQuest's description, the app is "playable in both VR and desktop mode", with shared multiplayer Worlds, spatial voice chat, avatars and events. Early Access is for the rest of it: friends and messaging, groups, world and event discovery, progression, and moderation and safety tools.
The reasoning SideQuest gives is that a social platform cannot be finished in private: "AltspaceVR is a social world, so many of the decisions that matter most can't really be made without an active community using it." Features that work well may be expanded, it says, while ideas that do not "may be redesigned or replaced". Steam lists the app as multiplayer and cross-platform, with partial controller support.
The page describes AltspaceVR as "a social VR app connecting people from all walks of life" and lists Meta Quest, Pico, Android and Windows PC as the platforms carrying it, "including support for compatible SteamVR/OpenXR headsets".
Steam Frame sits on the recommended line
SideQuest names Steam Frame as the recommended headset rather than any PC VR hardware, with Steam Link appearing only in the minimum requirements. Steam's own asset timestamp puts the page's store art at 12:44 UTC on October 13, which dates its most recent change rather than the listing's creation.
Beyond that, Steam shows an English-only app in the Adventure, Casual, Indie, Massively Multiplayer and Simulation genres. The page makes no claim that accounts, worlds or content from Microsoft's version carry over.
SideQuest is the name on the listing
SideQuest, which added Quest device-settings controls to its own app in 2024, is listed as both developer and publisher, and the support and website links on the Steam page both point at altvr.app. That is a different operator from the one that ran AltspaceVR until 2023.
For now the page gives a planned month and nothing narrower: October 2026, free to play, with Steam Frame on the recommended line.
