It’s not quite the metaverse, but Meta is launching its virtual world

Meta is bringing your vision of a so-called metaverse closer to (virtual) reality.

The company formerly known as Facebook said on Thursday that Horizon Worlds, a free Virtual Reality (VR) socializing app that has been in development for a long time, is now available to anyone 18 years and older with a Quest 2 headset in the US and Canada.

Horizon Worlds is not a fully developed metaverse.

This difficult-to-define concept refers to efforts to build a large virtual realm in which people can walk, through digital avatars, and interact with others who are also there virtually.

But the launch is one of the biggest efforts the company has undertaken to popularize virtual reality and socializing since purchasing Oculus in 2014.

On Horizon Worlds, users who wear headphones can meet friends and new people, play games and create their own worlds. Users, who appear as highly customizable avatars but with no legs, can move their real fingers and hands to gesture in VR, and their avatars’ mouths appear to move realistically as they speak.

goal gave to CNN Business Access Horizon Worlds this week so I could try it out, including during a guided demo on Wednesday (8).

At first glance, it looked like a bleak combination of another social virtual reality app, Rec Room, and the pioneering virtual world created by user Second Life.

On Tuesday, for example, I traveled to as many different “worlds” within the app as I could, searching fruitlessly for another virtual human. Eventually, I fell into what appeared to be an abandoned mall—a world called “Retro Zombies”—where I shot zombies until one of them attacked me.

Watching a demonstration with a small group of people (Meta employees and another journalist) was more fun. We split into teams to play a laser tag game, Arena Clash.

I sucked at the game, but my teammates were quick to give me a virtual high-five to revive me every time I got KO’d. (Games are already a common VR use case. As more people access Horizon Worlds, there may be other things to do.)

Also of note: in hopes of keeping VR harassment to a minimum, Horizon Worlds logs the last few minutes of each user’s activity on a continuous basis, overwriting over time.

This footage will be included if a user submits a report of negative interaction with others in the app.

With Horizon Worlds, Meta hopes to take VR from a niche technology with uncertain use cases beyond games and entertainment to a mass-market medium.

Socializing in VR has been a goal of many headphone manufacturers and VR apps, but no company has yet managed to get large numbers of consumers to buy headphones and pop up repeatedly in the same way that we do with, say, websites. social media on our smartphones.

To accomplish this, Meta must convince customers to buy a Quest 2 headset, which starts at $299, and then use the device frequently for reasonably long periods.

The launch of Horizon Worlds also comes when Meta doubles its VR efforts as part of a long-term gamble on the metaverse. The company previously said it would separate Facebook Reality Labs — its division dedicated to augmented and virtual reality services — as a separate reporting segment from its social apps.

Meta also said it will hire 10,000 people in Europe to build its concept for the metaverse.

And Meta isn’t alone — Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said earlier this year that the company wanted to build the “enterprise metaverse,” and games like Roblox and Fortnite, which operate their own virtual worlds, have heralded versions of the metaverse for months.

Meta hopes users will come to Horizon Worlds not just to have fun, but to build more places to play VR. Meta said Horizon Worlds users have built thousands of worlds within the app since private beta testing began last year.

Horizon Worlds is not the first time that Meta and its subsidiary Oculus have attempted to popularize social interaction through VR. The company launched Oculus Rooms and Facebook Spaces virtual hangout apps in 2016 and 2017, respectively, that allow small groups of users to gather in VR.

However, the company closed both VR apps in October 2019. It then announced a virtual social world, which at the time was called Facebook Horizon.

The launch of Horizon Worlds follows an announcement in late October that Meta will launch a more personal space for VR users, Horizon Home, and an August announcement of a more work-focused free app for the Quest 2 headset, Horizon Workrooms, which is intended for holding meetings in VR.

*(Translated text. Click here to read the original, in English)