Meta to Merge ‘Venues’ Event Space into ‘Horizon Worlds’ Social VR Platform

Horizon Worlds is Meta’s social VR platform for Quest 2 and Rift which includes ways for users to explore together, create their own rooms, and play mini-games. The company is making good on its vision to mold the social platform into more of a monolithic metaverse app by folding its live event app Horizon Venues entirely into Worlds.

The change is slated to take place starting June 6th, the company says in a blog post, which will allow Horizon Worlds users direct access to Venues events, such as live sports, concerts, comedy, and user-created meet-ups.

Horizon Worlds is still in somewhat of a beta, as only 18+ users from the US and Canada have access right now. That means that once the company transitions Venues into Worlds on June 6th, only those users will be able to access it, including minors and Quest 1 users. The company says it’s still publishing highlights and replays of Venues events in Oculus TV.

“We’ve experimented with portals between Horizon Venues and Horizon Worlds over the past few months, and we’ve seen just how powerful it can be when you can seamlessly jump between a game world to a hang out space—then head right into a big show with your friends,” Meta says.

Meta says it will roll out Horizon Worlds in more countries at some point this summer. The company hasn’t intimated any significant event between now and Connect 2022, which typically takes place in Fall. It might suggest the wider rollout of Horizon Worlds won’t feature the sort of fanfare associated with some of its most celebrated platform exclusive features and games—although that’s pure speculation.

Meanwhile, Meta is vying for more third-party developer talent to help build out Worlds by expanding developer programs to include training on how to build games and experiences which ought to help attract more users from competing social apps, such as Rec Room, VR Chat, and Bigscreen.