Meta's Virtual Reality figures, as unveiled by Zuckerberg, will now incorporate lower limbs.
In a significant step towards enhancing the virtual reality (VR) experience, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and co-founder of Meta, has expressed excitement about the potential of Meta's metaverse, particularly the leg movements feature in Meta's Horizon VR avatars.
As of mid-2025, Meta's Horizon VR avatars support leg tracking and realistic leg movements through the Meta Avatars SDK, primarily in third-person view modes where full-body avatars with legs are used. However, in first-person view, avatars currently do not display legs.
The latest update to the Meta Avatars SDK, version 38.0.0, released in July 2025, has enhanced full-body presence and modular torso tracking, indicating ongoing refinement in avatar realism. While full leg animation and body tracking capabilities exist, these features still require integration and activation by developers using components such as and .
Despite these advancements, no public or official Meta announcements specify a firm release date for universal leg movement inclusion across all Horizon VR avatar contexts or in first-person view. The latest SDK updates focus on fixing distortion in animation transitions and stabilizing scaling but do not explicitly mention new leg-tracking hardware or fundamental breakthroughs on that front.
In a demonstration at the Meta Connect conference, Zuckerberg's digital avatar showcased the new feature by lifting each leg and performing a jump. The avatar legs will initially appear in Horizon Worlds, with plans to add them to additional experiences "over time as [Meta's] technology improves."
However, the appearance of the legs is not yet clear, and the company is facing criticism, snark, and competitive-trolling due to the apparent fabrication of a feature. Meta plans to use an AI model to forecast and represent the positions of a user's entire body, but the rendering of real-world legs that are hidden from the headset's field of view will be inaccurate. We will have to wait for the legs to launch to see how Meta's AI-predicted legs compare to the real stuff.
Interestingly, Zuckerberg stated that there is another feature on the roadmap that is expected to receive significant interest and attention. The company has been candid about the challenges involved, with one statement admitting, "legs are hard!"
The rollout of Meta's signature product, the metaverse, has been bumpy, and this latest development adds another layer of complexity to the company's ambitions. As Meta continues to refine its technology, users can look forward to more immersive VR experiences, with realistic leg movements potentially becoming a standard feature in the future.
[1] Meta Developer Blog: "Meta Avatars SDK Update: Version 38.0.0" [2] Meta Developer Blog: "Improving Avatar Leg Animation and Body Tracking" [3] The Verge: "Meta's Horizon VR avatars now support leg tracking, but not in first-person view" [4] UploadVR: "Meta's Horizon VR Avatars Gain Leg Tracking, But It's Still Developer-Enabled"
- As Meta continues to refine their technology in their metaverse, users may anticipate the integration of realistic leg movements in VR avatars, which is currently a feature in development and expected to be added over time.
- With theMeta Avatars SDK's ongoing refinement and focus on leg tracking improvements, there might be an eventual inclusion of leg movements in first-person view within the metaverse, but as of now, there's no official announcement regarding a specific release date.
