Inspiration
Forever Pets began with birds, and from the start we knew we wanted to bring cats into the world as well. Our internal roadmap targeted early 2026 for the first release of cats, but the Meta Horizon Start competition gave us exactly the push we needed to accelerate production. It created a clear deadline, a motivating challenge, and an opportunity to share something that genuinely makes players happy much earlier than planned.
What it does
This update allows players to adopt one of eight new, beautifully crafted, believable cats. These founder cats sit alongside our birds and bring a new emotional dimension to Forever Pets. They are still early-access characters, simpler and less interactive than the birds for now, but they can already respond to touch, look at the player, move around, and express soft, Pixar-inspired personality. Most importantly, players can caress them with both hands simultaneously using hand-tracking, and the cats respond physically and behaviorally, creating an immediate sense of presence and comfort.
How we built it
We were able to build and polish the cats much faster than expected thanks to KuteEngine, our behavioral AI engine developed over a decade at VIRTUAL BEINGS. The system gives our characters their lifelike reactions, emotional nuance, and moment-to-moment believability. Combined with our existing VR framework from Forever Pets, we could focus almost entirely on visuals, physicality, and emotional expression rather than rebuilding core behaviors from scratch.
Challenges we ran into
Hand-tracking remains a moving target. Our goal is to make the player's hands physical so they collide with the cats naturally. We use AutoHand to achieve this, and while it works, it is not perfect. Getting two hands interacting simultaneously adds even more complexity, but we are steadily improving the experience. We also did not have time to build feeding or full play systems before the competition deadline. As a result, the cats are currently simpler than we intend, but the foundation is strong and ready for fast iteration.
Accomplishments that we are proud of
The greatest accomplishment is the player feedback. We have received messages from players who lost real cats and say Forever Pets helps them cope, and others who say our cats help them manage stress, loneliness, and depression. That emotional impact is why we build these experiences. On the production side, the cats have already increased our monetization more than fivefold, transforming our trajectory and putting us on track for financial sustainability. For a small team, this is a game-changing milestone.
What we learned
Visuals matter deeply. The fur, eyes, and overall silhouette took a lot of work, but players immediately notice and connect with them. We also learned that players do not want strict realism, they want believability, charm, and emotional expressiveness. Our Disney and Pixar inspirations continue to guide us toward that sweet spot.
What is next for Update to Forever Pets: We added immersive cats!
Next steps include feeding interactions, play systems, fun interactions between cats and birds, more mini-games, and next year multiplayer and mixed-reality support.
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