Meta company logo, as Meta separates its Horizon Worlds platform from the Quest VR store
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Horizon Worlds, the social platform that once sat at the heart of Meta’s metaverse pitch, is being pulled apart from the Quest headset business. In a developer blog post published Thursday, Meta said its Worlds platform will now be “almost exclusively mobile,” while Quest will lean on outside studios rather than Meta’s own big-budget games.

The post, titled “Our Renewed Focus in 2026,” was written by Samantha Ryan, VP of Content at Reality Labs. “We’re explicitly separating our Quest VR platform from our Worlds platform,” she wrote, describing a split meant to let each side grow on its own terms. You can read the full post on Meta’s Horizon developer blog.

What Meta announced

The most visible change is in the Quest store. Individual worlds are being removed from the store shelves inside the headset, and worlds are also being separated from the store in Meta’s phone app. Ryan said Meta expects the change to give more exposure to regular VR apps, a point developers have raised for some time. “We heard your feedback loud and clear, and after a year of collecting data and running experiments, we agree,” she wrote, according to UploadVR’s report on the announcement.

On the mobile side, Meta pointed to fast growth. The company said the number of mobile-only worlds went from zero to more than 2,000 over the past year, helped by its 2025 Creator Fund, and that monthly active users on mobile grew more than fourfold in 2025. Meta also said four creators have passed $1 million in lifetime revenue and nearly 100 earned six figures last year. Meta does not publish total user counts for Worlds, so those figures are difficult to check independently.

Horizon Worlds launched on Quest in 2021 and reached Android and iOS phones in late 2023. Meta has not said when, or whether, the Worlds app will be fully removed from Quest headsets. For now it remains available.

Third-party focus by the numbers

The second half of the post is a pitch to VR developers. Rather than funding its own blockbuster games that compete with outside studios, Meta says it will support third-party developers through “strategic partnerships and targeted investments.”

Ryan said 86% of the effective time people spend in their headsets goes to third-party apps. Meta said it put nearly $150 million into VR developer programs in 2025, including its Start Developer Competition. She named UG, Hard Bullet and The Thrill of the Fight 2 as outside titles that each earned millions of dollars.

Meta also shared some store figures. It said the 2025 holiday season on Quest was on par with 2024 even though no new headset launched last year, total payment volume was similar year over year, and in-app purchase revenue rose 13%. Premium app sales still bring in most of the money. Meta’s Horizon+ subscription passed one million active subscribers in 2025, with a catalog of more than 100 titles.

New tools for developers include season passes, featured bundles, a “Deals” tab in the store, comments on developer posts, and a Feedback Center with a voting board.

Navigator replaces Horizon Feed

The Worlds split fits with interface changes Meta announced last month. The Navigator interface is becoming the default on Quest starting with version v85, and the Horizon Feed, which mixed social content and worlds into the home screen, is being phased out. Headsets will instead boot to a grid of installed apps. UploadVR noted that some Quest owners on the Public Test Channel are already seeing a Navigator layout without a dedicated Worlds button.

Context: a hard start to the year

The post arrives after a rough few weeks for Meta’s VR division. In January, Meta cut about 10% of Reality Labs staff and closed three of the VR studios it had acquired: Twisted Pixel, Armature and Sanzaru Games. Camouflaj, the studio behind Batman: Arkham Shadow, saw significant layoffs, and a planned sequel was reportedly cancelled. Horizon Workrooms has been deprecated and the Quest for Business program shut down.

Speaking with reporters at Davos last month, CTO Andrew Bosworth said VR is “growing less quickly than we hoped.” Ryan’s post strikes a more upbeat tone. She wrote that VR “is still growing,” described Quest sales as “far ahead of all competitors” based on Circana retail data, and called Meta “the single biggest investor in the VR industry.” She also referred to a “robust roadmap of future VR headsets,” without giving details.

What it means for Quest owners

For people who own a Quest, the immediate effect is a cleaner home screen and a store that puts traditional apps and games first. Anyone who still plays Horizon Worlds can keep using the app on the headset for now, but Meta has made clear its creative energy and creator incentives are going toward phones.

For developers, the message is mixed. Meta is promising more visibility and funding, but it has changed course several times since it bought Oculus nearly 12 years ago, and the studio closures are still fresh. How much of the $150 million figure carries into 2026, and on what terms, will matter more to small studios than any change to the store layout.

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