On March 18, Meta announced the shutdown of its virtual reality (VR) social platform, Horizon Worlds. To many, this did not come as a surprise, but rather another indicator of Meta’s VR “metaverse” continuing on its decline. The Meta division tasked with developing this technology, Reality Labs, has had a cumulative loss of about 84 billion dollars since its start in 2020, and industry analysts from Hypergrid Business labeled the announcement as “a remarkable end for a project that prompted Zuckerberg to rename his entire company.”
However, the day after the announcement stating that “the Horizon Worlds app will be completely removed from Quest headsets,” Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth backtracked. On an Instagram “Ask Me Anything,” Bosworth said that Horizon Worlds would remain in VR as is, with no new updates or additions. Nevertheless, the attempt to pivot away from immersive VR sent shockwaves of doubt throughout the industry.
The platform remains alive and updated on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, which are not Horizon Worlds’ intended media of use. At the time they made it an app in September 2023—after it had already been on Meta Quest headsets for 22 months—Meta meant for it to be simply an entry point for people without VR headsets. Horizon Worlds will now compete with the likes of Roblox and Fortnite, which was never the original intention for an app intended to showcase the wonders of VR connection.
This announcement came weeks after Meta laid off 1,000 employees from Reality Labs, affecting not only individuals working at Horizon Worlds, but also those in other departments. Meta closed VR development studios Armature, Sanzaru, and Twisted Pixel amid the layoffs, putting an end to much of the content being produced exclusively for the Quest headset line. The studios, previously acquired or established to bolster Meta’s VR ecosystem, previously represented a cornerstone of Meta’s push into immersive entertainment.
Employees impacted by the cuts shared their experiences on social media, highlighting the abrupt nature of the announcements. “The notification came after working hours for me and others in my team, and it’s effective immediately. I guess I can finally enjoy the spring,” one worker said.
Even at its peak, Horizon Worlds never had over several hundred thousand users a month. The platform was often the subject of mockery online for its underwhelming visual quality, initial lack of legs for avatars, and reputation as a virtual ghost town. In 2022, according to an internal company memorandum, Horizon Worlds was unpopular with employees and had “serious problems with quality.”
Some have commended Meta’s VR initiatives while criticizing its expectations for player numbers. Epic Games VR Engine Programmer Christopher Fiala has been following Horizon Worlds since the initial and controversial avatar debut, sharing that, “While VR has become significantly more accessible and popular over the past 6-7 years, there are still a lot of annoyances and friction in using it that aren’t present for other technologies… Small barriers like that can be a massive problem for social platforms which are competing with much more convenient and accessible options.”
However, Fiala also explained that a large portion of VR adopters were turned off not by the barriers but by the branding. “Worlds’ ‘safe and sanitized’ vibe wasn’t a great fit for the existing audience,” he said. “VR users so far have largely flocked to less moderated, zanier social experiences like VRChat, an older VR social platform that came out a number of years before Worlds.”
Stanford University professor Jeremy Bailenson, who studies the psychology of virtual and augmented reality, noted that “Horizon Worlds’ shutdown is a reminder that building meaningful social VR takes sustained behavioral insight and patience, and the industry will likely recalibrate toward more targeted, high-value use cases. Its closure… offers important lessons about user well-being, design, and expectations.”
Written by Ruby Lerman
Graphic by Sona Saravana