Facebook – we’re not calling it Meta like it wants to be called any more than we’re calling Twitter by its featureless rebrand – runs something of a metaverse in the form of Horizon Worlds, a free virtual reality app for Quest headsets that bills itself as a “virtual universe with thousands of experiences” where users “hang with friends, meet new people, play games, and attend events.” It’s also a place where avatar torsos float around before your eyes like blissfully unaware victims of an Obi-Wan Kenobi lightsaber strike.
That was until last week, anyway, when the app first rolled out legs to avatars of the app after a year of development. And it does sound like it’s a first draft in the purest sense, as UploadVR reports that these legs are currently available only in the v57 public test server, are available only within the Horizon Home, and can be seen only in third-person views like looking in a mirror; users who look down will still see themselves as a floaty upper body.
Facebook is planning on introducing avatar legs to other portions of Worlds over the next few weeks, but even then the feature will only be supported on the app’s official experiences, as third-party games don’t have access to the SDK that powers avatar legs yet. It’s assumed that will come in a future update, but considering how long it took the company to kind of add legs now, it might be best to not hold your breath. Or not look down too often in-game.
