On Thursday, Meta revealed a significant update for its immersive virtual environment, Horizon Worlds, indicating a departure from the metaverse concept. The tech behemoth announced that the focus for Horizon Worlds will shift to being “almost exclusively mobile” and that it is “explicitly separating” its Quest VR platform from the virtual environment.

Since 2020, Meta’s Reality Labs unit for VR and smart glasses innovation has incurred near losses of $80 billion. The adjustments to Horizon Worlds, along with other recent actions, suggest that Meta is thoroughly reassessing its VR goals.

Recently, the company reportedly laid off about 1,500 staff from its Reality Labs division — approximately 10% of the department’s workforce — and closed multiple VR gaming studios. Furthermore, it was reported that the VR fitness application Supernatural, which Meta acquired in 2023, will cease producing new content and will transition into “maintenance mode.”

Initially launched in 2021 as a VR platform, Horizon Worlds was later extended to web and mobile platforms. On Thursday, Meta stated that to “truly change the game and access a considerably larger market, we’re fully committing to mobile.”

By prioritizing mobile, Horizon Worlds aims to position itself in competition with well-known platforms like Roblox and Fortnite.

“We’re in an excellent position to provide synchronous social gaming experiences at scale, thanks to our unique capability to link these games with billions of individuals on the world’s largest social networks,” Samantha Ryan, VP of content at Reality Labs, remarked in the blog entry. “You began to see this strategy take shape in 2025, and now, it’s our primary focus.”

Ryan also emphasized that Meta continues to prioritize VR hardware.

“We possess a strong roadmap for upcoming VR headsets designed for various audience segments as the market evolves and matures,” Ryan noted.

Meta has effectively forsaken its metaverse aspirations in favor of AI. After redirecting its Reality Labs investments from the metaverse, Meta is now concentrating on creating AI wearables and enhancing its proprietary AI models.

In last month’s earnings call, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg remarked, “It’s difficult to envision a world in several years where the majority of glasses that individuals wear aren’t AI glasses.”

The executive also mentioned that sales of Meta’s glasses have tripled over the past year, dubbing them “some of the fastest-growing consumer electronics in history.”