Features
Settings and controls
Everything you can change, how to play on desktop, with a gamepad or in VR, and the tools that make worlds nicer: mirrors, the camera and TV screens. At the end is how to report someone or tune a player out.
Settings
Open the menu and choose Settings. It is split into tabs:
| Tab | What is in it |
|---|---|
| Audio | Separate volumes for master sound, sound effects, voices, TV and media, music, ambience and dialogue, plus Proximity Voice |
| Mic | Turn your microphone on or off and choose which device to use |
| Graphics | An overall quality preset or detailed control over shadows, textures, effects, view distance, foliage, reflections, post processing and antialiasing, plus render resolution and foveated rendering for VR, an FPS cap, fullscreen and field of view |
| Access | Language, UI size, whether avatars download automatically, declining invites automatically, Streamer Mode, nameplates on stream, and hiding yourself from the leaderboards |
| Comfort | Smooth or snap turning, turn speed, how you move, swapping hands, hiding custom avatars, avatar physics, mouse and controller look, and face and webcam tracking |
| Debug | An FPS counter and a ping display (both off to start), your build version, and Report a Bug |
| Controls | Your key and button bindings for keyboard, mouse and gamepad |
A few worth knowing about
- UI Size makes the whole menu bigger or smaller, from 80 to 120 percent, and it works in VR as well as on desktop.
- Movement Style sets how you get around: teleport, point to walk, smooth movement that follows your hand or your head, running in place, arm swinging, and more. Some worlds choose a style for everyone.
- Turn off Smooth Turning if you prefer snap turns. Many people find them more comfortable.
- Hide Custom Avatars shows everyone around you as the default character until you turn it back off. Typing
/plainin chat does the same thing. - Foveated Rendering only takes effect after you restart the game.
- Field of view is for desktop and goes from 70 to 120.
- Face tracking and Webcam Tracking are at the end of the Comfort tab. A headset that tracks your face moves your avatar's face unless you switch it off, and on desktop a webcam can move your face, head, arms and fingers. New in 0.3.0, the next update. See Face tracking.
- On the Controls tab, click a key to change it, right click a key to clear it, and use Reset All to go back to the defaults.
Hosting your own world
When you host, a Your Instance section appears with options that apply to everyone there. You can make your home private, allow or block climbing, turn the chat filter on or off, set one movement style for everyone, keep TV screens under your control, let guests invite their friends, and choose who can see your session.
Languages
The menu speaks fourteen languages: English, Español, العربية, 日本語, 한국어, 中文, Deutsch, Français, Italiano, Nederlands, Polski, Português (Brasil), Русский and Українська. Change it with Language on the Access tab.
A few things stay in English on purpose, like the VR Realms name and the full terms of service, because the English terms are the ones that count.
Playing on desktop
You do not need a headset to play. On desktop, other players see a small PC tag next to your name.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| W A S D | Move |
| Mouse | Look around |
| Space | Jump |
| C | Crouch |
| Left Shift | Sprint |
| E | Interact, grab and press buttons |
| Right mouse | Aim, with a little zoom |
| Middle mouse and move | Rotate something you are holding |
| Tab | Radial wheel |
| Enter | Chat |
| V | Microphone on or off |
| Esc | Menu |
Playing with a gamepad
A gamepad can do everything a keyboard and mouse can, from moving and grabbing to typing in chat with the keyboard on screen. Stick drift is handled for you, so nothing moves on its own.
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Start | Menu |
| A | Jump |
| X | Interact |
| Y | Radial wheel |
| Left trigger and right trigger | Aim and fire |
| Click the left stick | Crouch |
| Click the right stick | Sprint |
| Left bumper | Cursor for the menu |
| Right bumper and right stick | Rotate something you are holding |
| Direction pad down | Microphone on or off |
| Direction pad right | Go home |
| Direction pad left | Respawn |
Playing in VR
- Grip grabs things and trigger uses or fires them.
- A jumps.
- Y or B brings up the laser pointer.
- Click a thumbstick to open the radial wheel, then point at a slot with your other hand and pull the trigger. The wheel has Home, Mic, Emotes, Spawn, Avatar and Chat.
Left handed? Swap Hands on the Comfort tab moves the wheel and movement to the other controller.
Mirrors
Mirrors have a small control panel beside them. Use it to switch the mirror on or off and to pick a quality from Lowest to Highest. A mirror that is switched off simply goes dark.
Mirrors are one of the more demanding things to draw, so the setting is yours alone. You only pay for a mirror while you have it on, and other people choose for themselves. Mirrors placed in Workshop worlds start switched off.
The camera
Press Camera in the menu to launch the camera drone. It has several modes you can cycle through: Tripod, Follow Behind, Follow Front, Orbit and Free Fly. You can also choose where its preview sits on your screen and brighten the picture if a world is dark.
Photos are saved as PNG files in Documents\VR Realms\Photos.
In Free Fly on desktop, move with W A S D, change height with Q and E, look with the mouse, hold Alt for a cursor and press Esc to leave. In VR, squeeze the grip to exit.
Name tags are hidden from the camera view unless you turn on Show Nameplates on Stream, so your shots and recordings stay clean.
TV screens
Tap the address bar under a screen and type a link. Screens play direct video links, such as files ending in .mp4, and live streams ending in .m3u8. The controls let you play, pause, stop and change the volume, and Sync catches your screen up with everyone else in the room.
Links to video websites and pages will not play, and neither will anything protected against copying. If a link cannot be played, the screen tells you what it needs.
Anyone in a world can use its screens unless the host keeps them to themselves. How loud screens are for you is set by the TV and media slider in Audio settings.
Staying safe
Reporting
You can report a player from their card in Nearby, and a world or avatar with the flag on its card. Pick what is wrong, add any detail that helps, and press Send report.
- For players: harassment or hate, an inappropriate avatar or name, cheating, spam or advertising, or something else.
- For worlds and avatars: content tagged wrongly, poor performance, something broken, or stolen content.
Found a bug instead? Use Report a Bug on the Debug tab in Settings.
Tuning someone out
Open a player's card in Nearby to mute them, turn their volume down, or hide them. A hidden player shows up as a simple orb for you, and nobody else is affected. The game remembers who you muted and hid, and you can undo either from the same card at any time.