One day after Meta announced it was shutting down Horizon Worlds in virtual reality, the company’s chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, announced that it’s reversing course.
“I have a little bit of good news for you here,” Bosworth said in a video AMA on Instagram. “We have decided, just today in fact, that we will keep Horizon Worlds working in VR for existing games, to support the fans who reached out.”
Meta initially sent an email to Horizon Worlds users on Tuesday saying it would end Horizon Worlds in VR on June 15 but keep the platform afloat on mobile. The move came after Meta’s announcement in February that it is shifting investments away from its metaverse and VR efforts and laying off 10 percent of employees in its VR division, Reality Labs.
Meta's reverse course is somewhat of a surprise, though Bosworth says it was in response to fans reaching out. When asked for comment on Bosworth’s announcement, Meta pointed to his Instagram video but added that there will still be new features on the horizon, like virtual concerts.
“Immersive 3D and 2D concerts are still accessible on Quest via the TV app found in the Quest Store,” a Meta representative wrote in an email. “We'll have some new concerts coming up as part of our larger content slate.”
Users will not be able to create new spaces in Horizon Worlds, but the Meta rep says “existing user-created worlds are included.” WIRED asked when users would no longer be able to create new worlds, but Meta hasn’t provided a date yet.
Bosworth and Meta have said that there will be no new games or major investments in Horizon World. Meta made a similar move in January with its Supernatural fitness service, ending future updates but keeping the service running. He says most of the consumer and creator energy in Horizon Worlds was shifting toward mobile, hence the choice to lean into that.
“For people who already have games they like that they're using in Horizon Worlds, you’ll be able to download the Horizon Worlds app and use it in VR for the foreseeable future,” Bosworth said in the video.
It is unclear what that future looks like. Meta is clearly not getting as much out of the service as it is investing in it, so the pressure to cut costs is not going away.
“I wonder how long it continues,” says Jitesh Ubrani, a research manager at the analyst group IDC. “‘The foreseeable feature’ does not sound like a ringing endorsement that this is going to stay around forever.”
Instagram Engineering
Shopify Engineering