Backtracking on what it announced earlier this week, Meta now says it will keep Horizon Worlds VR support "for existing games".
If you somehow missed it, on Tuesday Meta officially announced that its Horizon Worlds "metaverse" platform would drop VR support in June, meaning it would only be available as a flatscreen experience for the web and smartphones.
But now, in an "ask me anything" session on his Instagram page, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth says the company has decided to "keep Horizon Worlds working in VR for existing games to support the fans who've reached out".
"I have a little bit of good news here for you then. 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 like yourself who really care about that.
The Horizon Unity runtime games, they're not going to work on mobile, they'll just be working in VR. We're not bringing new games – most of our energy is going towards mobile and the Meta Horizon Engine there. The reason for that is because that's where most of the consumer and creator energy already was, and so we're leaning into that. But for people who already have games that they like that they're using in Horizon Worlds, will be able to download the Horizon Worlds app and use it in VR for the foreseeable future."
Bosworth says this specifically applies to worlds developed with the Horizon Unity runtime, suggesting it applies to those built inside VR or with the Horizon Desktop Editor, but not those built for the new Horizon Engine with Horizon Studio.
The picture painted here is of a clean technical break, with the legacy Unity version of Horizon Worlds continuing to support VR, and the new Horizon Engine focusing fully on flatscreen.
This VR support will continue through the Horizon Worlds VR app, which Bosworth says will stay on Quest's store "for the foreseeable future".
Specific worlds will not be recommended by the operating system, though, and nor will they be seen in the storefront. Horizon Worlds will be just another app on the store.
David Heaney
As for the reason behind not supporting VR in Horizon Engine, Bosworth repeated the explanation he's been giving for two months now – "because that's where most of the consumer and creator energy already was, and so we're leaning into that".
Back in January, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth claimed that Meta has seen “really, really positive pickup” in Horizon Worlds on smartphones, and said that the company planned to double down on this.
“You've got a team that actually has product market fit in a huge market on mobile phones, and they're having to build everything twice. They're building it once for mobile phones, and building again for VR. There's a pretty easy way to increase their velocity: just let them build for mobile. So Horizon is very focused now on mobile — not exclusively, but almost exclusively,” Bosworth was quoted as saying.
