Meta announced a major update for its immersive virtual world, Horizon Worlds, on Thursday. The update represents a significant strategic shift, as the company will now focus the platform “almost exclusively” on mobile and is explicitly separating it from its Quest VR platform. This move signals that Horizon Worlds is leaving the metaverse behind.
This pivot follows substantial financial losses within Meta’s Reality Labs division, which is responsible for VR and smart glasses development. Since 2020, the division has lost nearly $80 billion. The Horizon Worlds update is part of a broader rethinking of Meta’s VR ambitions, which has included recent layoffs and studio closures.
Last month, Meta laid off roughly 1,500 employees from Reality Labs, representing about 10% of the unit’s staff, and shut down several VR game studios. Additionally, the VR fitness app Supernatural, which Meta acquired in 2023, will no longer produce new content and is moving into a maintenance mode.
Horizon Worlds originally launched in 2021 as a VR platform before expanding to web and mobile. Meta stated that to truly change the game and tap into a much larger market, it is now going all-in on mobile. This mobile-first strategy positions Horizon Worlds to compete directly with popular platforms like Roblox and Fortnite.
Samantha Ryan, Reality Labs’ VP of content, explained the rationale in a blog post. She said the company is in a strong position to deliver synchronous social games at scale by connecting those games with billions of people on its social networks. This strategy began unfolding in 2025 and is now the main focus.
Ryan also noted that Meta remains committed to VR hardware, stating the company has a robust roadmap of future VR headsets tailored for different audience segments as the market matures.
Overall, Meta’s metaverse ambitions have effectively been abandoned in favor of artificial intelligence. After shifting Reality Labs investments away from the metaverse, the company is now focused on developing AI wearables and advancing its own AI models.
During Meta’s latest earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized the company’s focus on AI, stating it is hard to imagine a world in several years where most glasses people wear are not AI glasses. He also reported that sales of Meta’s glasses tripled in the last year, calling them some of the fastest-growing consumer electronics in history.