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2026.2.1 is here – and you know what that means! Yep, it’s time to accessorize. Fashion, baby. It’s time. But hey – that’s not all! In fact, it’s not even half of it. We’ve got a lot in this one.
But hey – before I get into that, here’s your reminder that we’ll be answering your questions at the end of the video and don’t forget to ask your question in the comments, if you’d like. Don’t want to wait for me to answer them in the next one? Check out our stream, every Friday at 5PM ET! Link in the description.
Anyway, time to talk about the good stuff.
First up: Accessories!
Yep – might as well get them out of the way first, right?
We first talked about Accessories in a Dev Update a few weeks ago. But to summarize, Avatar Accessories are… exactly what they sound like! They’re accessories that you can put on your avatar: think a hat, or sunglasses, a halo, a tail, or… well, you get the idea.
They are performant little additions you can toss on your avatar… and they stay there! That means that they’re not quite like Items, where they despawn after you leave a world. No, with Accessories, these are always on your avatar. It’s basically like opening up Unity and adding something to it, except… right from your VRChat client.
Have questions about Accessories? Check out the aforementioned Dev Update!
With this release, you’ll be gaining access to our first few Accessory collections. We’ll be releasing these alongside Shop updates, although we intend to also have a lot of evergreen options that aren’t limited in the Shop, too.
But hey: show ‘em off!
Next up: Third-Person View!
Over the past few months, we’ve been running a beta branch for folks to test an optional third-person view for desktop users. With this release, we’re bringing that functionality out of beta.
One important caveat: this is going to be a VRC+ feature out of the gate… but only for a brief “early access” period. It is expected to last until the end of June, at which point this feature will be enabled for everyone. It is completely possible that it might be released to all users sooner than that, though.
You can find options for this feature in the Graphics Settings in the Main Menu. There are key binds to control it as well: F5 to toggle, TAB to freely rotate, and scrollwheel to adjust distance.
Next: Loading Screen Updates!
We’ve changed the loading screen… again! Well, sort of. It’s a minor change compared to customizable loading screens, but consider this a refresh to many of the tooltops you’d see while loading. We can now display the world thumbnail, loading progress, as well as the old banners – just updated.
We think it looks better. Let us know!
Finally: Avatar Performance Gating in Group Instances!
We have added the ability for Groups to add minimum avatar performance levels to their instances. In short, when you create a Group instance, you can set a minimum performance level for anyone joining that instance.
If someone tries to join and is using an avatar that doesn’t meet your performance requirements, they’ll be warned – and, while they will be allowed to join, no one in that instance will see their “real” avatar. They’ll just see their fallback. Likewise, no one in the instance will be able to turn on their avatar.
Group owners, however, can allow certain roles to bypass these limits – for example, if they want to allow performers to have less performant avatars than attendees.
We think this feature will be very helpful for groups running large instances.
As a note, if you want more details, you can check out the Dev Update thread, which will be linked in the comments.
That’s it for features, on to Changes & Fixes!
We’ve changed how the chatbox timeout behavior works due to feedback! The flat timeout has been removed and replaced with a “leaky bucket” rate limiter. You are now allowed to send 5 messages within 5 seconds before having to wait to send your next message. Likewise, auto sent messages will no longer contribute to rate limiting, only manually sending a message will have limits.
We also improved the chatbox typing indicator. The typing indicator should now show and hide more reliably, not get stuck, and work when backspacing.
VRCat’s Variety Box world category is no longer forced to always take the top spot in the world category list. It is now possible for other world categories to choose a higher priority and take that first spot over. This change does not inherently rearrange anything, as VRCat’s Variety box still has the highest priority, but it is now possible for us to change that in the future.
Removed the automatic group join notification some users could receive if they spent enough time in a group instance. We also removed the setting related to toggling off automatic group join notification, as it’s no longer in the game.
We’ve removed the progress bar from the Explore Groups page that encouraged some users to join at least 15 groups. For those that participated, we hope you found a cool group or two!
The per-user volume adjustment can now be set up to 300% and will snap to exactly 100% for easier resetting.
Tweaked the Item section of the Quick Menu. Specifically, we removed the Visibility toggle for your own Items. We also removed the View User Profile button for your own Items. We changed the “Remove” button to “Put Away” for your own Items. We also added a “Customize” button for, once again, your own Items.
Fixed a bug that would prevent some moderation and badge-related notifications from being cleared using the “Clear All” button.
Fixed an issue where bundles in the Shop would not show as fully “owned” if the Items/avatars within had been obtained independently (i.e., from individual listings or gifts).
Fixed a bug with the Camera Lens sometimes appearing, uh, huge.
Fixed a bug with the scroll bar in some menus going too far down after hitting the back button.
Too far… into the jungle.
Fixed a bug preventing first-party store products from being able to be gifted to non-friends.
Inventory UI updates.
Lots of small code refactors and minor performance optimizations in this one. More than usual, so we thought we’d mention it!
And… that’s it for changes and fixes! But hey, we’re not done yet. As always, it’s time to answer some of your most pressing questions. Here are a few of the most popular ones from last time!
AlissahKat asks, “Speaking of impostors, can we get an option to see an avatar’s impostor, when its not shown due to the “limit shown avatars” or range settings? It’d be nice to see more than the floating triangles in crowded lobbies.”
We’ve talked about this one on stream before – which, shout out to the stream, which we do every Friday at 5PM ET. Anyway, to answer your question here, you’re probably using those features to increase your frames – to hide avatars that are too heavy.
In this case, though, having Impostors there wouldn’t actually be a great idea, because while some components of an avatar are hidden when you don’t see them like this, not all of them are, due to Unity limitations as well as animators.
The end result is that you’d end up basically loading both the original avatar and their Impostor.
So yeah, likely not something we’ll be doing any time soon… at least until we blow up animators. I hope one day we blow up animators…
Michiestelar767 asks, “I was wondering if at some point they’ll add a system for sharing a house with other players, so that 4 people could have the same house and not have to invite or join the others, just log in or return to the home.”
We’ve had variations of this idea over the years – sometimes as individuals, sometimes as groups, sometimes in other ways. I do think it’s a good idea! This, unfortunately, though, is one of those things that bounces on and off the roadmap, so I don’t have an ETA, although it is certainly something I’d like to see.
Xxheartmochixx asks, “Could you in the future put a search bar for the favorited avatars?”
This is one of our most requested features. I want it, too! While I can’t promise you anything for sure, I have to imagine that it’s something we would seriously consider the next time we give the avatar sections some love.
ShaunDreclin says, “Yay, yet another feature that we can’t make our own content for. Awesome.”
I saw a few of these types of responses to the Loading Screen. I thought maybe I should say something!
First, one reason you see us creating new things for the store that you can’t make is that… yes, we want you to buy them! We need money! We’re a company. We have salaries and server bills and on and on. VRChat is a free social platform with millions of avatars and worlds – that’s a lot to manage and it ain’t cheap!
But it’s also just a matter of how much more complicated it is to allow users to make stuff.
Is the juice really worth the squeeze here? Like, I really want to impress how incredibly difficult it is to create a loading screen within the parameters we need to hit – the level of optimization here are likely only achievable for a very, very small number of our userbase. Would it make sense to build and engineer an entire SDK just for that minuscule number of users? Unlikely!
Loganbuddy asks, “Why are avatar lights still unavailable for Quest users? 
”
Performance! It’s already extremely difficult to optimize for the Quest 2 – at this point, it’s not just a cellphone strapped to your face, it’s an old cellphone strapped to your face! A lot of folks are running into errors and crashes as it is, so until the Quest 2 is deprecated, it’s unlikely that we’ll lift any of these restrictions on Quest.
…and that’s it for questions!
As always, please leave your questions in the comments, if you’ve got em. Likewise, if you want to see the full patch notes, check the description! I’ll see you next time.