It's time to beta test Meta's greatest technological innovation since the News Feed: legs. Today, walking on two feet becomes available to Meta Quest headset users who download an update intended to help people walk on the bottoms of their feet just like our ancient ancestor, Ardipithecus ramidus, the early hominid was able to accomplish bipedality 4.4 million years ago. And now it comes full circle.

When Meta's suite of social products for virtual reality first launched, the avatars didn't have legs; they just hover there as disembodied torsos. Now our digital likenesses can finally get back on their feet. So far, users report that they only come equipped with legs in Horizon Home, the area where you find yourself when you first turn on your headset.

New Leg IK for Meta. They held their opinion that you should only see them as a third-person view .

Perhaps the largest issue it has is about the lack of crouching, though still, progress, pic.twitter.com/0s5jmIvuvW
— Brad Lynch (@SadlyItsBradley) August 29, 2023

While Quest headsets do allow hand tracking, a technology that lets users essentially use their hands instead of controllers, they don't track leg and foot movement. That makes it a bit tougher to create legged avatars that feel at least a little bit natural. Early testers say you can only see legs in third person, not first person, which is supposed to make the visual a little less jarring.s

In fact, last October, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta was working on legs. Maybe now that feature will stand up and running before Meta's next Connect event in September.