Meta is giving its metaverse avatars a glow-up

Meta is overhauling its metaverse avatars, and you’ll be able to use them soon: the new look will be available on October 1st, the company announced at its Connect conference on Wednesday. The new avatars will be available on Meta Horizon OS (its VR operating system), as well as Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.

Meta’s avatars started out in a rough place, but the company has made steady improvements, and these changes look to build on that. With the upgraded avatars, Meta is going to give users new ways to fine tune things like eye size, nose shape, and body shapes, Meta’s Aigerim Shorman, a VP on the Horizon team, said onstage. That’s thanks in part to a new underlying tech stack, which includes an updated avatar skeleton.

Of course, it’s 2024, so there’s a generative AI component to Meta’s avatar news, too. Later in 2025, users will be able to generate an avatar by typing in a prompt and describing what they want. In an on-stage example, Shorman showed how the generative AI tool could create a spooky version of her avatar that was dressed like a mummy.

Meta is also introducing new types of fantastical avatars, if you’d prefer to style yourself as an animal or a monster. And at some point, you’ll be able to unlock themed avatars such as Captain America from Captain America: Brave New World and Doja Cat’s 2023 Paris Fashion Week look by going to experiences in Horizon Worlds.

Starting in 2025, Horizon Worlds developers will also be able make NPCs to make their experiences more engaging. In a recorded demo, the presenter had a voice conversation with an NPC that talks back to her using AI.

These updates could help make Horizon Worlds a more compelling virtual world to hang out in. Meta has a long way to go to bring people over from huge metaverse-y platforms like Roblox and Fortnite, but better avatars and the addition of NPCs might be enough to make some people give Horizon Worlds another look.