Meta Reverses Horizon Worlds VR Shutdown Decision

Meta has reversed its plan to drop VR support for Horizon Worlds. After first saying the social app would become web and mobile only from June 15, the company changed course and confirmed that Quest headset support will stay in place.

Good to Know

• Meta had said Horizon Worlds would shift to web and mobile only on June 15.
• Andrew Bosworth later said VR support will remain after all.
• Meta still plans to put more energy into the mobile version of Horizon Worlds.

Andrew Bosworth, Meta chief technology officer, shared the reversal in an Instagram Stories Q&A after a user said they were “heartbroken” over the earlier plan. Bosworth said:

“We have decided, just today in fact, that we will keep Horizon Worlds working in VR.” A Meta spokesperson later confirmed that comment.

Meta Changes Direction on Horizon Worlds

Earlier in the week, Meta had confirmed on its community forums that Horizon Worlds would no longer support Quest and would focus only on web and mobile. That decision did not last long. The company has now restored VR support, even though the brief plan to end it showed how far Horizon Worlds has drifted from its original role inside Meta vision for social VR.

Meta once treated Horizon Worlds as a core part of life inside the metaverse. But user interest in social VR never really matched that ambition. Even with Quest support staying alive, Meta is still putting more attention on mobile, where it sees a bigger audience and better product fit.

Bosworth recently said on a podcast with journalist Alex Heath that mobile has become the clearer path forward. He said:

“There’s a much bigger audience in mobile, and it’s having a really positive pickup on mobile.[The team] is having to build everything twice — they’re building it once for the mobile phone, and they’re building it again for VR. There’s a pretty easy way to increase their velocity, which is just like, let them build for mobile.”