Credit: Meta
Meta announced the closure of its social VR platform, Horizon Worlds, on Quest headsets. Users were notified that the app would be removed from the store on March 31, 2026.
Starting March 31st, the Horizon Worlds client will disappear from the Quest app store; the company will remove Meta Credits, avatars, some digital clothing items, and in-game purchases. The virtual version of the platform will be completely shut down on June 15th, after which access to the service will remain exclusively on mobile devices. The company took this step after conducting major layoffs in its Reality Labs division in February, laying off 10% of its virtual reality team. Horizon Worlds was considered the company’s flagship project in creating a metaverse—the company was so confident in its success that it even changed its name from Facebook to Meta.
Horizon Worlds’ popularity among users was minimal. The platform was ridiculed from its launch: in its early days, user avatars had no legs, and after its launch, it was predominantly children—making money from such an audience is very difficult. Meta invested billions in the platform, organizing joint projects with major brands and artists—including Imagine Dragons and Coldplay concerts held in virtual worlds. But even the third-party developer’s VRChat project remained increasingly popular. Now Meta has shifted its focus to artificial intelligence, and its core product is Ray-Ban smart glasses. Investments in its metaverse divisions have sharply declined, and even popular services like Supernatural Fitness have stopped updating.
Despite the project’s closure, Meta is not abandoning its VR development. The company stated that it continues to invest in new devices and infrastructure.
This includes a line of headsets and smart glasses. Furthermore, the corporation intends to develop areas related to artificial intelligence, which is gradually becoming a new priority for Meta’s business.
