Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds entry in June

Horizon Worlds, Meta’s first go at a metaverse, will likely be inaccessible by way of digital actuality headset after June 15, 2026. The corporate shared plans to separate Horizon Worlds from Quest VR platform and focus completely on the smartphone model of the app in February, and now in a new post on its group boards, Meta detailed when the VR model of Horizon Worlds will likely be deprecated.

By March 31, Meta says particular person Horizon Worlds and Occasions will now not be listed within the Quest’s Retailer and headset house owners will likely be unable to go to worlds like “Horizon Central, Occasions Area, Kaiju and Bobber Bay.” Then, after June 15, the app will likely be faraway from Quest headsets and worlds will likely be utterly unavailable to go to in VR. From that time on, the simplest place to go to Horizon Worlds will likely be within the Meta Horizon app for iOS and Android.

Moreover, Hyperscape Capture, a just lately added beta function that permits Quest headset house owners to seize, share and go to one another in detailed 3D scans of real-life areas, can also be being faraway from Horizon Worlds. Meta says customers will nonetheless be capable to seize and think about Hyperscapes, “however sharing, inviting, and co-experiencing Hyperscapes with others will now not be supported.”

Whereas Meta’s original blog detailing its 2026 VR technique left open the chance {that a} dedicated Quest proprietor would possibly nonetheless be capable to entry some a part of Meta’s authentic VR metaverse, that apparently was by no means the corporate’s plan. Meta noticed sufficient “constructive momentum” specializing in supporting the cellular model of Horizon Worlds in 2025 that it made sense to utterly abandon the VR one in 2026. Whereas that appears to run opposite to Meta’s positioning as a “metaverse company,” it does mirror the place the corporate is spending the most money and seeing the most (relative) success: AI and good glasses.