Evidence suggests Valve's next XR controllers could include a D-pad and bumpers to together act as a gamepad for flatscreen gaming.
XR enthusiast Brad Lynch and his team of SteamVR dataminers have discovered a new Valve controller codenamed Roy in the code of SteamVR, including an OpenXR extension, strongly suggesting it's a tracked controller, not a new Steam Controller.
Months ago, I was told that a Valve controller codenamed “Roy” existed and seemed to be far along in productization
— Brad Lynch (@SadlyItsBradley) November 14, 2024
It was separate to the spiritual successor to the Steam Controller I was ALSO told was in EV1 stage at the time
“Roy” is now referenced in the backend of SteamVR pic.twitter.com/6PEsEjDcu2
Roy is almost certainly a reference to the antagonist of Blade Runner, matching the apparent codename of Valve's next headset, Deckard, the movie's protagonist.
Lynch says the combination of datamining and information from "sources" reveals that Roy will have "at least" a D-pad, bumpers, grip buttons, triggers, ABXY buttons, a system button, and some sort of strap.
Further, Lynch claims he was told by these sources that Roy seems to be "far along in productization".
David Heaney
Valve has repeatedly confirmed over the past three years that it's working on a new headset.
In December 2021, well over a year after the launch of Index, Valve President Gabe Newell said the company was "making big investments in new headsets".
In October 2022, Valve posted a job listing for a computer vision engineer to help “prototype, ship, and support” a VR headset for "millions of customers world-wide", with inside-out tracking, camera passthrough, environment understanding, eye tracking, and hand tracking. And in December 2022 Valve product designer Greg Coomer told a Korean gaming news magazine the company has been "working on a new VR headset lately", and that there are "several projects going on in-house".
Most recently, in November last year Valve strongly hinted that the headset would focus on wireless streaming from your PC, something that previous datamining suggested too.
As for Deckard's controllers, seemingly codenamed Roy, in 2022 Valve actually patented a controller with an IR LED tracking ring and Index-like straps, though no D-pad was visible.
Given that this patent was filed two years ago, it's very possible Valve has iterated on the design since. In particular, since Meta and Pico have delivered low cost ringless tracking, making their previous ringed controllers look outdated, it's hard to imagine Valve launching a new controller with rings.
As to when we might actually see Deckard and Roy ship as products, that's anyone's guess, as rumors have swirled of an imminent launch for years now. But with Index reaching six years old in June, and its SteamVR usage share slowly declining following the launch of Quest 3, it seems 2025 really could be the year Valve finally launches a successor.
