The Outer Worlds – How to Prevent SteamVR from Launching with the Game (Spacer’s Choice Edition)

Simply put, if you have a VR headset connected to your PC when launching the game, the game will be tied to SteamVR, and SteamVR will launch (and potentially use up resources). This happens when developers do not disable OpenVR/OpenXR in Unreal Engine. Here’s how to stop it.

Guide to Prevent SteamVR from Launching with the Game

The Problem

Do you have a VR headset plugged in to your PC? Does SteamVR open when you launch Outer Worlds?

If yes for at least the latter question, this is the guide for you. If no, you don’t need this guide! Congrats.

The Solution

Right click on the game in your Steam library, select Manage > Browse Local Files

From here, browse to:

• [Install Location]\Engine\Binaries\ThirdParty\OpenXR\win64\

Inside this folder will be a file called openxr_loader.dll. Rename this to whatever you want, I renamed it to openxr_loader.dll.old for demonstration.

Now SteamVR should remain closed whenever you go to launch your game. This should also work with other Unreal Engine games that have the same problem (Like Spyro Reignited Trilogy).