Meta Announced the End of the Metaverse and I’m a Little Sad.
In a community blog post today, Meta announced the Horizon Worlds shutdown for VR users. The Horizon Worlds app and related events will disappear from Quest headsets by March 31, and VR users will no longer be able to use the social hub after June 15, 2026. Horizon Worlds will continue to operate, Meta reports, but only for mobile users.
“We’re separating our two platforms so that each can develop with greater focus, and the Horizon Worlds platform will become mobile-only,” the company explained in a statement. “This separation will affect our entire ecosystem, including the mobile app.”
Horizon Worlds launched in 2021 as a VR-only platform where users could interact in virtual spaces, but it faced early technology and design limitations (most notably the lack of legs on user avatars in the Metaverse). However, at the time, the company hoped the Metaverse would eventually attract over a billion users, and Horizon Worlds was seen as an integral part of that process. Clearly, this didn’t happen—at its peak , Horizon Worlds had only around 200,000 monthly users.
What happens to users’ digital purchases and creations?
Long-time Horizon Worlds players are likely wondering what will happen to their in-game digital items. The good news is that your purchases and creations made specifically for Worlds won’t be immediately deleted; Meta states that your digital items or currency will remain linked to your account. The bad news is that you’ll only be able to access them through the mobile app in mobile-optimized worlds, so unless the creator has updated their world for mobile, your items may become unavailable there.
After June 15th, you will no longer be able to create or edit worlds in VR. Meta encourages the use of its web tools, but the immersive building experience that defined the platform is officially ending.
Meta shifts focus from virtual reality to artificial intelligence.
These changes are part of Meta’s overall strategy to focus more resources on artificial intelligence and smart glasses. In January, Meta shuttered its AAA VR game development companies, stopped updating its subscription fitness app Supernatural, and laid off 1,500 employees from its VR division, Reality Labs.
However, despite all this, Meta claims it has no plans to completely exit the VR industry. In a February 19 blog post, Samantha Ryan, vice president of content at Reality Labs, promised that Meta is “doubling down on VR,” but is nonetheless abandoning its own development efforts to focus on hardware, third-party developer support, and adding features to the Quest itself. “It’s no secret that we’re still focused on hardware,” Ryan wrote. “We have a robust roadmap for future VR headsets that will be tailored to different audience segments as the market grows and matures.”
Quite a sad ending to Horizon Worlds.
A few years ago, when I bought a Quest 3, I played a little bit of Horizon Worlds . “Oh, I can decorate a little house or meet people,” I thought. Then I quit and never looked back—I have a real house I can decorate, and I use VR because I don’t like people. But a few months ago, when it became clear that Meta was moving away from the VR space it had created, I got curious, put on FaceComputer, dusted off my old avatar, and went on a safari through Horizon Worlds. And I’m glad I did.
Visiting Horizon Worlds is an eerie experience. It’s like entering someone else’s dreams—specifically, Mark Zuckerberg’s own and the sub-dreams of the volunteers creating Worlds . “The defining feature of the metaverse will be the sense of presence… The feeling of truly being with another person is the ultimate dream of social technology. That’s why we’re focused on building it,” Mark Zuckerberg said at Connect 2021 , and he was so confident of this that he spent billions (possibly up to $25 billion ) on his dream world, where nothing ever gathers dust and everyone is a perpetually smiling cartoon character, ready to pay the Overseer real money for the latest digital sneakers.
Then there are the thousands of creators who have spent countless hours building over 10,000 worlds you can visit—nightclubs, basketball stadiums, restaurants, and so on—though almost all of them are empty. No matter how impressive it may look, there’s no queue at a digital nightclub. Horizon Worlds is a gigantic abandoned mall, a capitalist cathedral without a congregation, a supreme frontier.
The quirky atmosphere is reason enough to visit, but Worlds has a real side, too. I eventually found a world where people have overcome the unsettling nature of virtual reality and created a genuine community. The Soapstone Comedy Club isn’t very big, but it’s thriving, and it’s one of many small gathering spots in Horizon Worlds . There are social spaces where people meet, daily scheduled comedy shows, and plenty of friendly regulars to chat with. It’s grown from the ground up, just as Zuckerberg predicted. Okay, so the comedy is rarely funny. But the people there are good.
Some of the inhabitants of the SuperCharacter world are housebound and disabled, and virtual reality gives them opportunities they lack in the real world. Some seem like weirdos who probably have trouble finding real-life friends who wouldn’t block them at will. And some are just regular people, just blowing off steam after work. I feel sorry for them all—a comedy club on a phone screen just isn’t the same. So before the digital destroyer destroys all the remaining hangouts for Horizon Worlds residents, you should stop by and say hello. You don’t have much time left.