Meta says Horizon Worlds is going mostly mobile, while Quest VR leans harder on third-party apps

Meta is changing course on Horizon Worlds. The company says it’s shifting the platform’s focus to be “almost exclusively mobile,” while more clearly separating it from the Quest VR side of the business.

In a blog post, Reality Labs VP of content Samantha Ryan said Meta wants Horizon Worlds on phones to reach a bigger audience, pointing to what it calls positive momentum from earlier mobile experiments. The post also says Meta is explicitly splitting “Quest VR” from “Worlds” so both can grow without being tied together.

On the VR software front, Meta says its long-term focus is supporting third-party developers rather than trying to keep everything in-house. Ryan wrote that, across first-party and third-party apps, 86% of the “effective time” people spend in Meta VR headsets is in third-party apps, and that Meta plans to keep backing that ecosystem through partnerships and targeted investments.

The news lands during a rough stretch for Reality Labs. Meta’s latest financials show the division brought in $2.2 billion in revenue in 2025 but posted a $19.2 billion loss. The company also recently cut staff in the division and closed three VR studios: Twisted Pixel Games, Sanzaru Games, and Armature Studio.

Meta didn’t share a specific timeline for what “almost exclusively mobile” means in practice for Horizon Worlds, or what the shift looks like for existing VR creators and experiences.

It’s starting to seem like the “Metaverse” won’t be focused on VR.