Meta’s metaverse is going mobile-first
Meta is officially separating Horizon Worlds, the closest thing to a metaverse, from its Quest VR platform, according to a new blog post from Samantha Ryan, Meta’s vice president of content, Reality Labs. While the move runs counter to Meta’s original plan to own an immersive virtual world that could serve as a future home for all online interactions, it fits with recent cuts to its costly Reality Labs division and Mark Zuckerberg’s public pledge to focus the company on AI hardware like smart glasses in the future.
“We are explicitly separating our Quest VR platform from our Worlds platform to create more room for growth for both products,” Ryan writes in the blog post. “We’re doubling down on the VR developer ecosystem while shifting the worlds focus to an almost exclusively mobile mode. By splitting things into two distinct platforms, we’ll be better able to focus clearly on each.”
Meta has been developing mobile and web versions of Horizon Worlds alongside its VR app since at least 2023. Making Worlds a mobile-focused software platform isn’t good for hardcore VR fans, but it does make it a more natural competitor to something like Roblox Or Fortnitewhich also offer user-created and monetizable worlds and games. It’s also a business that Meta believes can scale more easily because of its ability to connect games to “billions of people across the world’s biggest social networks.”
Even though Meta closed several of its own VR game studios earlier this year, it still wants to support third-party developers publishing games on its platform. The company says new monetization tools, better visibility, an Offers tab, and more ways for developers to talk to their customers should help make a difference. Maintaining Quest’s game library could also be essential in the future. Business Insider reported in December 2025 that Meta was working on a gaming-focused Quest headset, and Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth confirmed earlier in February that the company still had multiple Quest devices on its roadmap.
