Meta will shut down Horizon Worlds VR access on June 15, 2026, marking the end of its original metaverse experiment on Quest headsets. The company announced plans to separate Horizon Worlds from the Quest VR platform in February, focusing exclusively on the smartphone version of the app. By March 31, individual Horizon Worlds and Events will no longer be listed in the Quest Store, preventing headset owners from visiting popular worlds like "Horizon Central, Events Arena, Kaiju and Bobber Bay."

After June 15, the app will be removed from Quest headsets entirely, making worlds completely unavailable in VR. Users will need to access Horizon Worlds through the Meta Horizon app for iOS and Android instead. Additionally, Hyperscape Capture, a beta feature that allowed Quest owners to capture and share detailed 3D scans of real-life locations, is also being removed from Horizon Worlds. While users can still capture and view Hyperscapes, sharing, inviting, and co-experiencing these spaces with others will no longer be supported.

This decision reflects Meta's strategic pivot away from VR metaverse ambitions toward AI and smart glasses development. Despite positioning itself as a "metaverse company," Meta is now investing heavily in areas showing more success, including a reported $600 billion investment in AI data centers and growing sales of Meta AI glasses. The shutdown of Horizon Worlds VR represents a significant retreat from Meta's original vision of a VR-based metaverse, as the company redirects resources to platforms with stronger market momentum.