Meta has announced that it is shutting down the virtual reality version of the Horizon Worlds platform. The company made the announcement in a blog post, where it stated that Horizon will now transition into a mobile-only experience.
“We are separating the two platforms so each can grow with greater focus, and the Horizon Worlds platform will become a mobile-only experience. This separation will extend across our ecosystem, including our mobile app,” Meta wrote in its blog post.
The Horizon Worlds VR platform will be removed from the Quest Store by 31 March, while the app will also be removed from VR on 15 June.
“Horizon Central, Events Arena, Kaiju, and Bobber Bay worlds will no longer be available in VR. You can still jump into your other favorite worlds in VR until June 15, 2026, after which the Horizon Worlds app will be removed from Quest, and Worlds will no longer be available in VR,” Meta noted.
Notably, Meta had also made steep cuts to its Reality Labs division, the team responsible for its headsets and VR products. The company cut nearly 1,000 jobs from the division in January while also shutting down three in-house gaming studios.
Mark Zuckerberg’s focus on Metaverse:
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had such conviction around the metaverse that in 2021 he rebranded the company from Facebook to Meta.
“Our hope is that within the next decade, the metaverse will reach a billion people, host hundreds of billions of dollars of digital commerce, and support jobs for millions of creators and developers,” Zuckerberg had said in a blog post then.
However, the Reality Labs division has reportedly been losing money and has suffered a loss of around $80 billion since 2020, as per a TechCrunch report.
Moreover, Meta will reportedly no longer produce new content on the Supernatural app that it had acquired back in 2023 and will move it into ‘maintenance mode’.
In a blog post in February this year, Reality Labs Vice President of Content Samantha Ryan noted that the company would be “doubling down on the VR developer ecosystem while shifting the focus of Worlds to be almost exclusively mobile.”
“Our consumer base continues to expand and evolve, from VR elites to teens and young adults. We also continue to see casual adult consumers who gravitate toward entertainment and enjoy streaming their favourite shows, movies, and sports,” Ryan added.
Meanwhile, Meta has been increasingly focusing its resources on artificial intelligence and related products. The company set up its Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) unit last year while acquiring startups like Manus AI and Play AI.
