The XR Week Peek (2026.07.27): AI-coded mods are bringing new content to PCVR, Samsung unveils new glasses, and more!

July 27, 2026July 27, 2026

It’s summertime! Many people are going on vacation, the VR magazines have reduced the amount of news they publish, but I’m still here writing for you the summary of the most important pieces of XR news of the week! This week we actually had quite a few notable things happen, so this Week Peek will be strangely packed for the end of July. And it was a cool week for me, too, since for the first time I’ve been a speaker at an event that was not XR-related, but was about AI. But don’t worry, I’m not jumping ships; I’m just trying to become a more complete engineer!

Top news of the week

AI-coded mods are changing the VR landscape

AI is starting to disrupt the VR gaming scene. In the past few days, thanks to the increasingly powerful AI coding models, people in the community have started to write VR mods for a lot of games. Just in the past week or so, we had a VR mod for HALO MCC, one for F.E.A.R, and many others. Probably AI models have also become better at modding thanks to the code shared openly in the past by the first VR modders, to which we should always be thankful. But in any case, now a flatscreen game can be modded to work in VR also by someone who has some sort of technical skills, but is not a professional developer or a skilled modder. This can change a lot in our landscape.

The ones that are going to benefit a lot from this are the gamers. Suddenly, PC VR gamers can find themselves playing a lot more flat-screen games in VR. Potentially, every flat-screen game could be vibecoded into a VR game. This is huge: in the past few years, we had a lack of good PCVR games, and now suddenly we have potentially thousands of them. And we are talking about amazing games like HALO, not just simple games.

The interesting thing is that game studios will have a harder time stopping mods now. If in the past, they just had to send a cease-and-desist letter to a single professional modder like Luke Ross, now potentially everyone with some tech skills is a modder, so it would be like trying to stop a river with their hands. If AI systems evolve even more, maybe in a couple of years, people could just ask ChatGPT 15 to mod a game on the fly and obtain the desired result. Or most probably, someone will create an open model fine-tuned to do VR modding, and everyone will be able to use it at home to mod games.

The losers in this game are, in my opinion, the developers. First of all, the VR mod developers. Why should people pay Luke Ross if, from now on, most mods could be made by the community and shared for free? You may argue that teams like Luke Ross’s or Team Beef made better mods, and I agree, but the thing is, if something is “good enough” and free, then most people would go for it instead of the better and paid, unless the quality of the second is really high. So there will still be a market for some VR mods, mostly the ones that have better quality, better integrations, or the ones related to famous games that AI can’t mod. But the paid market will go down, in my opinion. There will still be a place for VR conversion of games, though, like the ones that Flat2VR is doing, because these are basically re-creations of games and are totally another thing.

The VR game developers will be affected, too. In what is already a shitty market, now they have to compete not only with the other VR native games, but also with all the VR mods. Again, there is still place for great VR games, but higher competition is not going to help the VR content creators, who are already laying off a lot of people.

It is fun anyway to notice that these mods are completely vibe-coded, so the developers themselves may not know what’s happening inside. This introduces safety risks. While you could trust Luke Ross about his mods, you never know what is in the code that a random guy created without knowing what he’s doing. You have to use it at your own risk.

There is a final detail of this story worth a mention: some people are angry at these mods because they are made with AI, and AI is the evil. I honestly don’t get this: I’m against the use of AI for personal interactions and for substituting artists, but we all use AI for development work, and this is just development work. Here we are not talking about making AI slop games, but about just doing a port. So honestly, I don’t get all this backlash.

In the end, it is what it is. This is potentially a huge change for the PC VR landscape and, for sure, great news for its users. But as a VR developer myself, I can’t fully smile when writing this news.

(Thanks to Alex and Rob for sending me links about this news)

More info (Halo 3 VR mod)
More info (F.E.A.R. mod)
More info (A comment about the AI backlash)
More info (AI has probably been trained on existing open mods)
More info (A meme on the situation of mods)

Other relevant news

google samsung smartglasses — (Image by Google)

Samsung unveils more details about its smartglasses

As the rumors speculated, Samsung has actually unveiled at its Unpacked event more details about its smartglasses made in collaboration with Google.

We already knew that these glasses will be powered by Android XR and Gemini and be made in collaboration with eyewear companies Gentle Monster and Warby Parker. We also knew that these are going to be smart glasses à la Ray-Ban Meta, without a display. So we could already imagine use cases like listening to music, having phone calls, taking pictures and videos.

The first thing Samsung unveiled at the event was two new frame designs, one from Gentle Monster, and one from Warby Parker. Talking about the use cases, it seems they will have a lot that AI can do, like summarizing content on a blackboard or taking notes in a meeting. The battery is going to last 9 hours, so more than its competition. The company is also experimenting with gesture controls with smartwatches, but this is not guaranteed to ship when the glasses will be released. And since we are talking about the release date, a launch this fall is confirmed.

Samsung is defining this as “premium” glasses, and highlighted that they are more resistant than regular glasses. While this looks like a good thing, what concerns me is the price. An analyst told CNBC that if these glasses are “premium”, the cost may even be $600–700. But no one is going to buy glasses that are a bit better than Ray-Ban Meta at double the price. The “premium” feeling may make sense if Meta made glasses that are bad to wear, but they are actually made by Ray-Ban, so they are definitely good on all sides. So I really hope that Samsung is going to reassess its strategy, unless they find a killer use case that Meta can’t replicate.

One last thing about Gentle Monster: this eyewear brand is very famous in Korea, but not much known in the West. The good news is that it has big plans for expansion and it aims to open more than 200 stores in Europe and North America in the next five years. This is fundamental to make sure that people can try and buy its smartglasses.

More info (Samsung unveils its glasses — Road To VR)
More info (Samsung unveils its glasses — CNBC)
More info (Samsung unveils its glasses — CNET)
More info (Gentle Monster’s expansion plans)
More info (My hands-on with AndroidXR on glasses)

Steam Frame looks closer every day

Valve is keeping slowly releasing stuff that makes us realize that the Steam Frame launch is getting closer and closer. Just this week, people in the community have been able to find:

The screen of the room setup of Steam Frame
A big update to Steam that adds a lot of strings related to Steam Frame
Companies on Amazon already selling controller grips for the Steam Frame
Games on Steam that are compatible only with Steam Frame
Steam Frame compatibility icons for the Steam store

I think we are now really close. If I had to bet, I would say that either Valve launches this week, or it waits until September. Things seem ready for this week, but maybe the company still wants to wait a bit, and in my opinion, launching in August, when many people are on vacation, would make no sense at all. So in my opinion, either today or September. We’ll see.

Of course, I’m speculating, and I’m not sure at all. The thing I’m sure about is that today, I’ll spend most of the time around 10 am PT pressing F5 on the Steam Hardware blog…

More info (Steam Frame playspace setup)
More info (Strings about Steam Frame)
More info (Controller grips on Amazon)
More info (Steam Frame games on Steam)
More info (Steam Frame icons)

Apple to announce the glasses at WWDC 27

According to the usual Marc Gurman, Apple is preparing to announce its smart glasses at WWDC 27, and officially release them during fall 2027. As usual, the announcement at WWDC would be made to give developers the time to create content before the official release.

The big problem in Cupertino would be the reputation of these glasses. Meta did a great job creating the market, but it also damaged the perception of these glasses. Because of the privacy scandal related to the Nigerian reviewers and the fact that the glasses have been used to secretly record interactions with women for social media, some people are now scared about these devices. I think the press talking about this problem has exaggerated it, but still, there is, for real, a reputation issue. Apple has so to craft the message properly so it doesn’t look like Apple is launching “pervert glasses”, but more like Apple is launching “innovative and safe smart glasses”.

The good thing for Apple is that it already invested a lot of marketing effort in the message about its care of privacy. This is going to pay off a lot now that it enters the wearables market. Meta, on the other hand, has a “reputational debt” related to privacy that is going to cost it a lot. It seems that apart from its usual care about privacy, Apple has also been debating internally how to go the extra mile with it: there are internal prototypes about glasses without a camera, or even with a camera but just used by its AI assistant and not accessible to the user. The problem is that the biggest use case of Ray-Ban Meta is the ease of shooting photos and videos, so removing the camera would mean making the glasses less interesting for everyone.

Let’s see what Apple will cook up about all of this. For sure, Apple’s entrance in the market would give another huge boost to the smart glasses sector…

More info (Mark Gurman’s tweet about Apple smart glasses)
More info (Mark Gurman’s article about Apple smart glasses)

News worth a mention

qualcomm snapdragone reality elite — (Image by Qualcomm)

Qualcomm is going to increase the price of its products

According to Bloomberg, Qualcomm has communicated to its customers that its chipsets are going to be more expensive starting from September 1st. The price hike will not be small, considering that it will be in the order of “double digits”, so for sure more than 10%. Qualcomm said that it tried to absorb the rising costs of components, but in the end, it couldn’t do that anymore, and so was forced to make its products more expensive.

Considering that Qualcomm is the supplier of almost all the AR, VR, and smart glasses around here, I think we can expect a new increase in the price of immersive devices for the upcoming months. And by the way, this is not going to help keep the price of the Steam Frame low.

More info

Pico has a new boss

The current head of Pico, Zhou Hongyi, who was also a founder of the company, is stepping down to leave its role to Li Xiaokai. The current plans of the company are going to stay the same, and Project Swan is still planned for a release this year. But it will be interesting to see what changes the new boss will bring in the long run.

More info (Head of Pico is stepping down — 36Kr)
More info (Head of Pico is stepping down — Focus XR)

Unity announces Unity 7

Unity has announced Unity 7. The new game engine will evolve on the same architecture as Unity 6, so games built with Unity 6 shouldn’t require much effort to be ported to the new version. The company promises better graphics, faster compilation, and more AI integrations. I’m very curious to discover it. Beta testing is starting in December, and the full release is scheduled for Q1 2027.

More info (Unity 7)

Do glasses really need an app store?

Asger Mølgaard shared a provoking thought of his: in his opinion, smart glasses like Ray-Ban Meta don’t need a dedicated app store. These glasses are accessories for smartphones, so we could just have the current app stores, and then glasses could be an add-on that the current apps use. So instead of having a dedicated Spotify app on the glasses, you could have just Spotify running on your phone that plays the audio through the glasses. He’s really a believer in this idea, so he made a company, Extentos, that offers an SDK that can let you easily add support for glasses to standard apps.

I’m not sure I completely agree with this idea, and I’m pretty sure that Zuckerberg doesn’t like the idea of relying on the stores from Google and Apple. But still, he has some valid points.

More info (Article about glasses and app stores)
More info (Extentos website)

Neuromancer lands on Apple TV

One of the most beloved and appreciated books in the VR community, Neuromancer, has been transformed into a TV series that will be available on Apple TV. And the author of the novel, William Gibson, is pretty happy with the results, so it should be really cool.

More info

Some news about content

Action-combat flight sim G-Rebels has launched in Early Access on Steam with VR support
Amelia’s Escape, a story-based escape room puzzle game from a solo developer, has been released on Meta Quest and SteamVR

More info (G-Rebels)
More info (Amelia’s Escape)

Some reviews about content

Daumier: Lila & Ghost is an upcoming co-op puzzle adventure where puzzles require cooperation between people. The graphics are great, and let you enter into the pictures, having feelings similar to Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. It is still in alpha testing, though, so there is still a lot to work on
Geronimo is an early access squad-based tactical combat game. It is still very rough around the edges, but it shows potential to become a very satisfying game in its genre.

More info (Daumier: Lila & Ghost)
More info (Geronimo)

Other news

Magic Leap confirms its pivot as a waveguide supplier and lays off 200 people

Learn more

XBOX Game Pass is now included with Horizon+ on Quest

Learn more

Immersed Visor is now 200$ more expensive

Learn more

SIGGRAPH just happened and VR was part of it

Learn more

News from partners (and friends)

Keys and discounts for Retro 3D!

Parietal Lab has made a fun app that transforms your Quest into those old stereo glasses with blue and red lenses. This way you can use your Quest 3 to enjoy all those old 3D anaglyph pictures that were so popular 30 years ago. It is a fun experiment that I think is worth trying.

And thanks to Parietal Lab, you can enjoy it for free or with a heavy discount! The company shared with me five keys to download the application for free. First come, first served:
JK9WK-XG66F-3YJK9-GEX3F-RNK4Q
EE6RT-XCKMP-7WCYM-3X7T3-KFHXG
HN733-WEMXG-MKYHJ-TE49M-4Q9KN
3J9A6-WJ4JJ-6RYNK-XRQMN-HPK7Y
R3A9H-E7E4G-PKWAK-AATJF-MQRYR

If you couldn’t get a key in time, you can still enjoy a big discount until August 8th on not only Retro 3D, but also Parietal Lab’s Connectome and Constellations using at checkout the code:
RETRO3D_EA_SKARREDGHOST-2E107A

It’s a great offer… It’s time for you to have fun on the Quest Store!

(PS: If you get the game for free or discounted, write a review to support the developer!)
Learn more (Get Retro 3D on the Quest Store!)
Learn more (Get CONNECTOME on the Quest Store!)

Discover ARR Immersive

The popular composer A.R. Rahman has launched ARR Immersive for Apple Vision Pro. This is what the press release says about it:

Academy Award and Grammy-winning composer, producer and storyteller A.R. Rahman is launching ARR Immersive App on Apple Vision Pro, a new visionOS app delivering immersive storytelling and music experiences in spatial computing. The app launches July 22 on the Apple App Store for Apple Vision Pro.

The ARR Immersive App places users at the center of visually rich 360° immersive films and music experiences, with spatial audio built on Apple’s ASAF (Apple Spatial Audio Format), Apple’s proprietary format designed specifically for Vision Pro to deliver three-dimensional, lifelike audio presence. New ASAF spatial audio mixes were created specifically for this app.

The app launches with original content created exclusively for the platform, including three Kathak dance performances fused with Western classical compositions, Clair de Lune, Rachmaninoff, and Fur Elise, performed by Pranith AP, Palak Chauhan, and Mudra IV, with choreography by Kathak dancer Shrita Baskar. The pieces represent a genuine East-West cultural fusion, pairing some of the most recognizable compositions in the Western classical canon with Indian classical dance, rendered in immersive spatial audio for the first time.
Learn more (Get ARR Immersive on the VisionOS Store)
Learn more (Upload VR’s article on ARR Immersive)

LEXRA to hold its inaugural summit in Dallas

LEXRA, the trade association for location-based XR entertainment, is holding its inaugural Summit Oct. 5–6 in Dallas, with HTC VIVE signed on as presenting sponsor. Registration is open at summit.lexra.org, with early-bird pricing available through July 31.
Learn more (Discover the event and register to it)

Some XR fun

The harsh reality of VR content nowadays
Funny link

Donate for good

Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph I won’t ask you to donate to my blog, but to the poor people who are facing the consequences of the war. Please donate to the Red Cross to handle the current humanitarian situation in Ukraine. I will leave you the link to do that below.

Let me take a moment before to thank anyway all my Patreon donors for the support they give to me:

Alex Gonzalez VR
DeoVR
GenVR
Eduardo Siman
Jonn Fredericks
Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
Reynaldo T Zabala
Richard Penny
Terry xR. Schussler
Ilias Kapouranis
Paolo Leoncini
Immersive.international
Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
Jake Rubin
Alexis Huille
Raghu Bathina
Chris Koomen
Cognitive3D
Wisear (Yacine Achiakh)
Masterpiece X
Dimo Pepelyashev
Carol Dalrymple
Keith Bradner
Fabrizio Carimati
Field Of Vision
Jennifer Granger
Jason Moore
Steve Biggs
Julio Cesar Bolivar
Jan Schroeder
Kai Curtis
Francesco Strada
Sikaar Keita
Ramin Assadollahi
Juan Sotelo
Andrew Sheldon
Chris Madsen
Horacio Torrendell
Andrew Deutsch
Fabien Benetou
Tatiana Kartashova
Marco “BeyondTheCastle” Arena
Eloi Gerard
Adam Boyd
Jeremy Dalton
Joel Ward
Alex P
Lynn Eades
Donald P
Casie Lane
Catherine Henry
Qcreator
Ristband (Anne McKinnon & Roman Rappak)
Stephen Robnett
KaihatsuJai
Christopher Boyd
Don Williams
Giuseppe Pippi
Mark Frederiksen
Ken Lin
Sebastien Poivre
Ixn91
Chris Madsen
Peter Winston
Sb
Boule Petanque
Pieter Siekerman
Enrico Poli
Vooiage Technologies
Caroline
Liam James O’Malley
Hillary Charnas
Wil Stevens
Francesco Salizzoni
Alan Smithson
Steve R
Brentwahn
Michael Gaebler
Tiago Silva
Matt Cool
Mark G
Simplex
Gregory F Gorsuch
Paul Shay
Paul Hadley
Matias Nassi

And now here you are the link to donate:

Support The Red Cross in Ukraine

(Header image by Google, Samsung, Gentle Monster)

Disclaimer: this blog contains advertisement and affiliate links to sustain itself. If you click on an affiliate link, I'll be very happy because I'll earn a small commission on your purchase. You can find my boring full disclosure here.