Meta backtracks on decision to end Horizon Worlds VR fans speak up

A day after announcing that it will be shutting down Horizon Worlds for Quest virtual reality headsets, Meta has changed course. The company said Wednesday that the VR platform will remain available “for the foreseeable future.”

“We have decided, just today in fact, that we will keep Horizon Worlds working in VR for existing games to support the fans who’ve reached out,” Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said in an Instagram story Q&A.

Meta previously announced on Tuesday that Horizon Worlds would be taken off the Quest Store at the end of the month, and fully removed from the VR headsets on June 15. After that date, it would only be playable on its standalone mobile app, the company had said.

Meta confirmed the change in an email to CNBC on Thursday.

Bosworth said in his follow-up announcement that worlds developed with the Horizon Unity game engine will remain exclusively available in VR, and no new games would be added to the VR social network.

“Most of our energy is going towards mobile and the Meta Horizon Engine there,” Bosworth said, adding that the mobile app already has “most of the consumer and creator energy.”

Horizon Unity supported Horizon Worlds from its launch in 2021 until September, when Meta announced at its Connect annual event that it would be replaced by the new Horizon Engine.

According to Meta, Horizon Engine delivers “smoother performance, sharper visuals, and the capacity to support larger audiences.” It develops games for the Horizon Worlds mobile app, which launched in 2023.

Horizon Worlds has failed to gain mainstream popularity. CNBC previously reported that the platform never drew more than a few hundred thousand monthly users, while popular gaming platform Roblox regularly reports over 100 million daily active users.

WATCH: Why Meta is willing to lose billions on the metaverse