Ever wished you could jet set around the world fast enough to ring in the New Year at a party in every timezone? Well that might not be quite possible, but VRChat is offering something close.

VRChat, a social VR experience supporting major PC VR headsets via Steam, is celebrating New Year’s Eve virtually in every timezone, every hour, on the hour. Fireworks included.

Image courtesy VRChat

Festivities are already underway with users congregating inside a virtual recreation of Times Square, including a countdown clock listing the next timezone of the New Year around the world. You can use this link to join the virtual location, with the app installed.

Image courtesy VRChat

2017 has been a good year for VRChat. The app, which lets users don completely custom avatars and build their own virtual environments, has seen strong growth toward the end of the year, setting successive records for concurrent users; the most recent record was set just yesterday at some 6,000 players, according to SteamSpy data. Earlier this year the company also raised a $4 million Series A investment led by HTC.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Ted Joseph

    Awesome stuff. Hopefully the untethered Santa Cruz takes full advantage of events like this. Cant wait!!!

  • Kevin Brook

    Stayed in today and so decided to spend the new year in VRchat. It was great. Winnie the Pooh counted down the timer the London new year for me. As I’m English a crowd of foreigners gathered around me to celebrate and count down with me as I was the Englander and then we all jumped off a skyscraper together. Definitely a memorable and different start to the new year!

  • Definitly something fun for people that have to stay at home. I’m looking forward to see difrent events in VR such as concerts. :D