If your headset tracks your face, your avatar's face follows yours. Your smile, jaw, brows, cheeks and tongue move your avatar, and other players see it. Your eyelids and where you look come along too.

It is on by default. To turn it off, open Settings, go to the Comfort tab and switch off Headset Face Tracking. Typing /face in chat shows whether a face is arriving and what your avatar can move.

Your avatar needs face shapes for this. An avatar with the standard face capture shapes (the 52 ARKit names) works as it is. An avatar with only a talking mouth opens that mouth with your real jaw. An avatar with no face shapes stays as it was.

It has been tested with a Quest Pro linked through ALVR, with face tracking switched on in ALVR and shared with other apps on the PC. Steam Link is being tested. Ask in our Discord if you get stuck.

Webcam tracking

New in 0.3.0, the next update. For desktop players.

No headset? In desktop mode a webcam can move your avatar. Open Settings, go to the Comfort tab and pick one under Webcam Tracking. It is off until you choose.

Face Only: your face, eyelids and eyes.
Face and Head Movement: also turns, nods and tilts your avatar's head with yours.
Upper Body: also your arms, shoulders and fingers. An arm follows while its hand is up where the camera can see it.

Each choice includes the ones above it. Switching off the one that is lit turns the webcam off.

Your camera picture never leaves your PC. It is turned into numbers for your avatar's pose on your own machine. It is never saved, never shown and never sent. Only the pose travels to other players.

Face the camera with a relaxed face for a second when it starts. That is taken as your rest pose. If nothing moves, your antivirus may be guarding the camera and need you to allow VR Realms, or another program may be using the camera. The game tells you which on screen.

Streamer mode

Turn on Streamer Mode in Settings to keep other people's names out of a stream or a recording. With it on, every player shows up as Player and a four-digit number, both above their head and in chat, including whispers. The number comes from the player's account, so the same person always gets the same number, and two people who share a name still get different ones.

It only changes your own screen. Everyone else still sees names as usual, including yours.

Menus are not covered. Names inside the menu, such as your friends list and the Nearby page, still show in full. Keep the menu off stream while you are live.

A separate switch, Show Nameplates on Stream, decides whether name tags appear at all in the in-game camera view. It is off by default, so a camera shot never has a name parked in the middle of it.

If you have mature content turned on, Streamer Mode also decides what other players' mature avatars look like. See Streaming with mature content on below.

Mature content

Some worlds and avatars are tagged Mature Themes. They are off by default and stay hidden until you turn them on, which takes two steps.

First, add the free VR Realms Mature Content DLC on Steam. It costs nothing and downloads nothing, it simply switches the category on for your account. Second, confirm once in game that you are 18 or older.

This is an opt in, not an age check. Steam does not verify anybody's age for us and we do not claim to. Turning it off again is just as easy, and access can be removed from an account by moderation if it is misused.

What stays blocked until you turn it on

Worlds and avatars tagged Mature Themes do not appear when you browse, and you cannot load them.
Another player wearing a Mature Themes avatar appears to you as Quinn, the default character. Your own avatar is never changed by this.

Confirming in game

Once you have the DLC, the first time you try to wear a Mature Themes avatar or travel to a Mature Themes world, the game asks you to confirm that you are 18 or older. Confirm, then tap the item again. You only do this once.

Players who were showing as Quinn switch to their real avatars the next time you change worlds or rejoin.

Streaming with mature content on

With mature content turned on, two more switches appear in Settings under Language & Accessibility. They only do anything while Streamer Mode is on. Tick one, or neither:

Streamer mode: mature avatars as Quinn. Other players' Mature Themes avatars show as Quinn.
Streamer mode: hide mature avatars. Those players are hidden and show as an orb instead.

With neither ticked, mature avatars show normally even while you stream.

Unhiding someone

Open Nearby in the menu and unhide the player. Their avatar shows again for the rest of the session. Turning Streamer Mode off brings back everyone it hid.

If you would rather not see other people's custom avatars at all, there is a separate Hide Custom Avatars switch in Settings under Comfort. It shows everyone around you as the default character until you turn it back off, and it works whatever a world is tagged.

Gold and leaderboards

The hub keeps score in gold: leaderboards for gold, groups, time in game, creators and supporters, plus a system that counts what you do while you play. Groups earn gold together too. The numbers are still being tuned. Read how gold works.