October Release Notes

Welcome to our latest updates! We are continuously working to improve your experience with new features, enhancements, and bug fixes. Stay informed about the changes by regularly checking this page.

Release Date: 10/15/2025

New Features

We are excited to introduce these new features designed to enhance your productivity and interaction:

Private Chat (Direct Messages)

To Send a Direct message to another user:

• Click the compose button 

• Select the user you want to send a private message to.
• Type out your message and hit Enter or the Send button
• Click between tabs to select the recipient you want to send a message to
• Some additional notes about the private chat feature:.
  • Emoji Reactions do not currently work in direct messages.
  • Direct messages can be sent to users in other rooms of your world
  • Direct message history persists as you change scenes.
  • Inactive tabs will show a count of unread messages.
  • Close the active tab by clicking its X button

See the video below for an introduction to the Private Message feature:
 

Boats

• 2 power boats have been added to the Campus scene
• How to use the boats:
  • Hop in the Captain's chair
  • Drive with the arrow or WASD keys
  • Hold Shift for a power boost
• Disembark
  • When close to the dock or the shore, move your mouse over the ground and click to teleport there.
• Call back boats
  • If boats have been abandoned at sea, the dock has buttons to call them back to port. Only unoccupied boats can be called back.
• Check out the new island in the distance. It is only accessible by boat!

Easier Access To Help

• A Help option has been added to the Account/Settings menu. This links to support.virbela.com

Enhancements:

Room Settings Menu:

• In the Campus scene, click Admin Tools → Room Settings Menu

• Current Options
  • Toggle fireworks
  • Change the time of day
    • The slider represents the hour in the day from 0 to 24

Avatar Customization Update:

• Users can now speak and chat to other users in their room while in the Avatar Customization mode

Localization catchup

• UI that was previously English only has been translated for officially supported languages (English, French, Japanese, Spanish)

Avatar Customization UI

• The Cancel and Done buttons have been given color and stay visible regardless of screen height.

Bug Fixes:

• Broadcast messages were not supporting special characters like “ and ' properly.
• Long names in the userlist are now truncated for a cleaner look.
• Go To Submenus consider numbers properly, so numbered offices for instance will display in the Go To menu in the expected order