• by Colin Kirkland

Meta has new avatars and according to the company’s presentation at Meta Connect 2024, the virtual avatars will have more detailed human-like movements, while offering users a wider range of customizable physical traits -- potentially boosting interest in the tech giant’s evolving metaverse vision.

According to Meta, the new avatars will offer “new ways for people to adjust everything from physical proportions to fine tune details like eye size, nose shape, body shape” and more, including “the movement and expression.”

More specifically, the avatar skeleton is “more detailed” and allows for a “richer” control experience in relation to how the avatars move and express themselves.

While the new avatars are dropping next Tuesday across Horizon platforms and third-party virtual reality (VR) and mixed-reality apps that use the Meta Avatars SDK, like “Golf+” and “Eleven Table Tennis,” the company is already planning future updates.

Some time next year, Meta says it will invite users to create new outfits using generative AI, as well as non-human “fantastical avatars” that users can unlock in different worlds, as well as branded entities in popular culture, such as Captain America from the newest film, and Doja Cat from her 2023 Paris Fashion Week look.

For a company that introduced its Horizon Worlds avatars without legs, which quickly became the platform's most requested feature, this is a notable step in satisfying users’ ability to personalize their online personas.

The updates could potentially onboard more users as well, while helping Horizon Worlds compete with other virtual gaming platforms like Roblox and Fortnite, which have become massively popular among young people across the world.