Meta Sets June 15 Deadline to Separate Quest and Horizon Worlds Platforms

Meta Quest virtual reality (VR) headsets will no longer be able to access the Horizon Worlds app, and Horizon Worlds will no longer be available in VR, after June 15.

Meta announced these changes in a Tuesday (March 17) blog post, saying this is part of a change of focus for VR and Horizon that the company announced in February.

“We are separating the two platforms so each can grow with greater focus, and the Horizon Worlds platform will become a mobile-only experience,” the company said in the post. “This separation will extend across our ecosystem, including our mobile app.”

Meta will begin winding down the connections between Quest and Horizon Worlds this month, with select capabilities and perks being eliminated before Horizon Worlds becomes mobile-only in June, according to the post.

For Horizon Worlds users, the company said: “After June 15, you can jump into all your favorite mobile-optimized worlds on the Meta Horizon mobile app.”

For Quest users, it said: “We continue to invest in making your Quest experience better — recent updates have brought new features like Surface Keyboard and Touchpad, customizable app and window positioning, and we’re continuing to roll out Navigator, our modernized interface, to more users.”

When announcing its change of focus for VR and Horizon in a Feb. 19 blog post, Meta said it changed the roadmaps to give developers and creators a better chance for success and to give the two platforms more space to grow.

“Our goal remains constant: to empower developers and creators as they build long-term, sustainable businesses,” Samantha Ryan, vice president of content at Reality Labs, said in the post. “We used to have a pretty well-defined audience for VR, but as we’ve grown, we’ve attracted new audiences — who want different things — and the onus is on us to make sure that each of these distinct groups can find the apps and games that appeal to them.”

It was reported in January that Meta was eliminating 10% of the jobs in its Reality Labs unit as part of a larger plan to reduce its focus on VR products as it concentrates on other artificial intelligence wearables.