Meta reverses its decision to end VR support for Horizon Worlds.



Meta has reversed its decision to end VR support for Horizon Worlds, as announced by the company's Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Andrew Bosworth.

Meta reverses course, will keep metaverse partially VR after all | Mashable
https://mashable.com/article/meta-metaverse-vr-horizon-worlds-update

On March 18, 2026, Meta announced that it would be ending VR support for Horizon Worlds. Horizon Worlds was scheduled to be removed from the Quest Store by March 31, 2026, and the Horizon Worlds app for Quest itself would be removed after June 15, 2026, rendering all worlds unavailable in VR. Consequently, Meta will be focusing its development efforts on the mobile app version of Horizon Worlds.

Meta Horizon Worlds to end VR support - GIGAZINE



However, Meta's CTO, Andrew Bosworth, revealed that they have reversed their decision to discontinue Horizon Worlds VR following user feedback. Bosworth announced the change in policy on his Instagram story, stating, 'Games using the Horizon Unity runtime will not work on the mobile app version of Horizon Worlds, only on the VR version of Horizon Worlds. However, we do not plan to provide new games for Horizon Worlds VR. The majority of our energy is focused on mobile and the Meta Horizon engine. This is because the majority of consumer and creator energy is already concentrated on mobile, and we are focusing on that as well. However, if you already have a favorite game playing on Horizon Worlds, you can continue to use Horizon Worlds VR for the time being by downloading the Horizon Worlds app.'




CTO Bosworth also addressed the reversal of the VR support termination for Horizon Worlds on his X (formerly Twitter) account, posting: 'For those who missed it, this is what I announced in my AMA yesterday. At this time, we have decided to keep the existing Horizon Worlds in VR for the foreseeable future. I know this is a bit of a sudden change, as we just announced something different a few days ago, but Horizon Worlds has a real fanbase in the VR community that has urged Meta to reconsider their decision.' He emphasized that the reversal of the VR support termination for Horizon Worlds was due to the enthusiasm of the fans.




This means that while no new Horizon Worlds games will be released for VR, support for existing games will continue.

Furthermore, on Threads , CTO Bosworth also commented on the reversal of the decision to end VR support for Horizon Worlds, saying, 'Even though the termination of support for the VR version of Horizon Worlds has been reversed, the misguided criticism of the metaverse is not going away anytime soon. This kind of criticism, like the actual metaverse, will persist for a long time. I have said this many times before, and will continue to say it, but the metaverse is not simply about Horizon Worlds or VR. The fusion of the digital and real worlds is what will shape the next computing platform. You can experience this in VR and AR, of course, but you can already see it on mobile platforms as well. The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed.' He thus refuted the criticism of the metaverse that is circulating on the internet. According to CTO Bosworth, VR is not essential to the metaverse.

Furthermore, Meta laid off more than 1,000 employees from its VR-focused Reality Labs in January 2026. It also revealed that it was reducing its investment in VR technology due to slowing growth. It has been reported that Reality Labs has been losing as much as $1 billion (approximately 160 billion yen) every month since 2021, when Facebook renamed it Meta and announced its focus on the metaverse .

Meta has been recording monthly losses of 160 billion yen in its VR division since June 2022 - GIGAZINE



Related Posts:

in Software, Posted by logu_ii