Gab Hernandez 
Recent reports suggest Valve is working on their next “Steam Box” console, codenamed Fremont.
When people think of Valve, the first two things that come to mind are Half-Life and Steam. The company has established itself as the standard for the PC gaming industry. With an exclusive storefront and a library of acclaimed classics, few can doubt Valve’s impact on gaming.
One avenue in which the company struggled to establish a foothold was hardware—Valve’s hardware attempt, the Steam Machine, infamously sold poorly. Half a year after its launch, the console had sold less than half a million units. Valve would redeem itself in the 2020s with the Valve Index and Steam Deck.
In 2024, reports have surfaced of Valve’s next hardware release.
Reports claim Valve is working on a “Steam Box” home console
The system is reportedly codenamed “Fremont” and could be a home console or set-top box. A Steam Deck hobbyist on Reddit spotted an interesting change in the Steam Deck kernel. The change implied a Valve employee was testing HDMI for a new device. The user speculated that the system could be Valve’s next console.
The data referenced “AMD Lilac,” which could refer to the development board or the SOC (System on a chip). Some users claim that Valve may just be testing ROG Ally compatibility. The original poster disagreed, citing that the ROG Ally did not have native HDMI support, among other key details.
Brad Lynch, who recently leaked images of the Steam Controller 2, supports the theory that this will be a new console. Lynch presented findings from his Discord server which corroborated the original post. He also pointed out that the 10th anniversary of the “Steam Universe” announcement lands on March 2025.
Valve may be returning to the home console race. After flopping with a console in 2015, fans are eager to see how Valve could potentially redeem themselves. The company has learned plenty from past mistakes, as detailed in a recent Half-Life documentary video.
The Steam Deck was a far more successful hardware outing than the doomed Steam Machine. The handheld console garnered praise for its hardware design and open-source software. Gamers would welcome the customizability of an even more powerful SteamOS device. Fans hope that’s exactly what the Fremont turns out to be.
