• Meta held its Connect 2022 event last night where a new Quest Pro VR headset was revealed.
• The company also announced plans to further develop its VR-related social experiences.
• Avatars are getting extensive improvements too, along with being available in more virtual spaces from Meta.

Last night Meta held its Connect 2022 event, where one of the worst-kept secrets in consumer tech was finally revealed in the form of the Quest Pro VR headset. While that is indeed the star attraction, Meta also made some announcements as regards the avatars that people will be using on its virtual platforms.

To that end, the first big announcement is that full-body avatars are finally being made available by Meta. These new looks will be accessible via Meta’s Horizon Worlds platform first, before making their way to other virtual worlds.

“We previewed our next generation of Meta Avatars that will be more expressive and detailed — and announced full-body avatars in VR, starting in Meta Horizon Worlds. Outside of VR, we’re bringing avatars to video chat, starting in Messenger and WhatsApp, so you can express yourself and react without turning your camera on,” the company explained in a blog post.

You can also see some of the customisation options that are coming to avatars in the video below, which highlights the in-verse Store.

“Next year we’ll also enable developers to start implementing custom avatar actions and behaviours into their games and apps,” noted Meta.

“And remember, avatars are still evolving—to be better-looking, more capable and expressive, more customizable. Our next generation of Meta Avatars, previewed today at Connect, will be more expressive and detailed than what’s available today,” it added.

Whether this will be enough to bring people to the Horizon Worlds and other virtual platforms that Meta builds remains unclear, especially as recent reports suggest a buggy experience has left some of its own employees reticent to try the offering out.

Either way, it looks like Meta is pushing ahead with its metaverse plans, so it will be interesting to see if its consumers/customers are willing to go on the ride too, especially if VR hardware like the Quest Pro retails for $1 499.99 (~R27 329).

If you are so inclined, you can watch the full keynote from last night’s Connect 2022 event in the video below. The discussions around avatars begin at the 54:40 mark.