Meta’s “metaverse” has become the tech equivalent of Schrödinger’s Cat. It exists in a superposition of both life and death. Meta knows it can’t fully abandon VR, even if the hype surrounding the metaverse and its Horizon Worlds virtual environment has withered to a shallow husk of its initial promise.
Just two days after Meta confirmed to fans it was pulling the plug on Horizon Worlds for VR, Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth said on an Instagram AMA that Meta has reversed its decision. As Bosworth explained, the community was adamant that they wanted to have access to Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest headsets.
“We have decided, just today in fact, we will keep Horizon Worlds working in VR for existing games,” Bosworth said. He added that the Horizon Unity runtime games that currently exist will continue to operate in VR and won’t be ported to mobile platforms. At the same time, Meta isn’t currently planning on making any more Horizon World games for VR. And that’s because “the creator and consumer energy were already big on mobile,” he said.
The fans have managed to save Horizon Worlds. That doesn’t mean Meta isn’t hitching the vague identity of the metaverse onto other tentpoles, specifically AR glasses, AI, and mobile devices.
Meta is still shifting the metaverse to mobile
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Meta also imagined people would care about Meta Quest as a game streaming device for services like Xbox. © Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
Meta had already been transparent about its planned shift toward mobile platforms and away from VR. In an interview with Alex Heath posted more than a month ago, Bosworth said that they had seen heavier pickup on mobile platforms. The company had started with social games like Super Strike, a less VR-centric multiplayer shooter compared to the 2023 game Super Rumble.
In January, Meta cut approximately 1,500 workers, mostly from its Reality Labs division. Some of those staff who got the ax worked in several of the largest game studios acquired by Meta over the last few years. Developers who worked on landmark VR titles like Asgard’s Wrath II and Deadpool VR were laid off. Meta also ended support for some of its more popular apps, like the Supernatural VR exercise game.
The entire Reality Labs division encompasses all of Meta’s XR (extended reality) ambitions, including its Meta Ray-Ban Display true AR glasses. Since 2021, Reality Labs has burned through approximately $73 billion. The Meta Quest was always going to be a loss leader. The company hoped to create an entire economy of headset-wearing workers who would do their daily grind in VR space, then pal around in VR and AR games on the weekends.
That never came to pass. Instead, headset sales were down tremendously from 2024 into 2025. In January this year, market research firm IDC told The Register Meta’s headset shipments were down 16% last year compared to 2024.
Horizon Worlds is not Meta’s biggest problem
“The energy there from consumer usage had already shifted to mobile,” Bosworth said in his Instagram AMA. And still, Meta won’t give up on the metaverse dream, where people are beholden to a headset to interact with friends in a bland, pastel-toned virtual world. “We very much imagine in the virtual reality space you’re going to want to have conversations with people you care about.”
Boz further implied Meta was looking at “new technologies” for how consumers can make AR and XR headsets a little less isolating. Horizon Worlds was never going to be popular. Even a few months after it launched in 2022, it reportedly fell way short of its planned monthly active users. Meta’s cheap Quest 3S headsets haven’t managed to push the needle on widespread VR adoption. Perhaps it’s time we treat VR like it was meant to be: a fun toy offering a few unique experiences and games to a few enthusiasts.
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