Meta Quest 3 headset
Meta
Last month Meta announced Horizon Worlds was to officially become primarily a non-VR phone platform, having once been a key focus for the company’s Meta Quest 3 strategy. That is to reach its final conclusion in June when the VR version closes down for good.
Meta’s line in a February announcement was Horizon Worlds would be “almost exclusively” a mobile experience going forwards.
But it will be removed from the Meta Quest platform on June 15, and will no longer be playable in VR.
“You can still jump into your other favorite worlds in VR until June 15, 2026, after which the Horizon Worlds app will be removed from Quest, and Worlds will no longer be available in VR,” a Meta representative posted on the Meta community forums.
Horizon Worlds will also be removed from the Meta Quest store by March 31st, should you want to give this ill-fated piece of VR history a final test drive. Time is running out, although Horizon Worlds will of course continue to exist as a “flat” non-VR phone app.
Horizon Worlds was Meta’s major VR metaverse play, but it never got close to eclipsing the popularity of third-party alternatives like Gorilla Tag and VRChat.
This can be considered part of Meta’s step back from VR, its admission the previous strategy of massive investments in aid of hopeful longer-term gains has not been a success.
Other moves include laying off 10 per cent of Reality Labs staff, in early 2026, and the shuttering of major first-party VR studios.
Meta is reportedly also considering even more substantial job cuts, of up to 20 per cent of the entire organization, owing to efficiency cuts made possible through increasing use of AI, Reuters reports.
While Meta has announced a contraction of its efforts in the VR space, Meta Director of Games Chris Pruett recently stated the company still plans to make new VR headset hardware in the future.
One rumoured new direction is of a much lighter headset with a separate housing for the battery and processor, reportedly planned for 2027.
This would bring VR hardware closer in form to that of smart glasses, which are a current focus for Meta. The Meta Ray-Ban Display are its latest release in that category, which are a step up from the popular Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer smart glasses, in that they have an in-vision screen and support gesture controls.
There’s still a big question mark over whether their more bulky design trades away the key appeal of the original design, though — that the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer look and feel much like ordinary sunglasses. Either way, the Meta Quest 3 may be the last Meta VR headset made in its mould.
