Facebook’s Metaverse in 2023: What Is the Meta Horizon Worlds Metaverse?

You’ve probably heard a lot about the Metaverse. Specifically that Facebook, or now Meta, has their own Metaverse, Horizon Worlds. Whether you just want to know what all of the fuss is about, or want the scoop on how Facebook’s Metaverse compares to other examples of Metaverses out there, then you’ve come to the right place. Here we’ll dig into what what Facebook’s Metaverse is in 2023, and how it compares to other examples of Metaverses out there.

What Is Facebook’s Metaverse? - Meta’s Horizon Worlds

Facebook’s Metaverse - The Horizon Worlds Logo

First thing first. What is Facebook’s Metaverse? Currently it’s an app that you can access through one of their Meta Quest 2 headsets called Horizon Worlds. It’s completely free, assuming you have a Meta Quest headset, and you can download it straight to the headset and access it quickly.

Facebook (aka Meta) has a lot of aspirations for their Metaverse, but here we’re going to describe Facebook’s Metaverse based on how it works today, and what it would be like if you experienced it yourself. No definitions here will be based off of a Tech CEO’s dream or a science fiction novel, just what exists in this Metaverse application that you can use right now.

Entering Facebook’s Metaverse

Entering Horizon Worlds for the first time greets you with a mirror showing you your Meta avatar. The same avatar that you see when you’re in your Meta Quest homescreen is the same avatar used in Horizon Worlds. This is all part of Facebook’s (aka Meta’s) ambition to make Horizon Worlds, and the Meta Metaverse overall, a core component of their VR headset products.

Facebook’s (Meta’s) hope with Horizon Worlds was that everyone who owns a Quest 2 headset would jump in and take part to meet their friends and strangers in their Metaverse worlds. This isn’t the case, installing Horizon Worlds on a Meta Quest device is completely optional, and a lot of people who own a Quest headset have never touched Horizon Worlds.

A Horizon Worlds Loading Screen

This avatar in Facebook’s Metaverse is how others see you. Your avatar follows your hand and head movements, and you can just talk like you normally would for others to hear you. You can basically interact with others across the world like they were in the same room as you. Also, of course, you see out of your Avatar’s eyes. You become your virtual character in VR more than ever before. Pretty sweet.

An Avatar in Facebook’s Metaverse

Exploring Facebook’s Metaverse - Meta’s Horizon Worlds

The first time you log in you’ll go through a little tutorial of sorts. This shows you how to interact with the world and objects in it. You can walk or teleport around in the world, or even move around as much as you can in the physical space you’re standing or sitting in just like any other Virtual Reality game.

The Horizon Worlds Tutorial

You throw around a paper airplane and shoot a toy gun. As far as VR interactions go the objects in Horizon Worlds are… adequate. They’re not groundbreaking stuff by any means, but they don’t feel terrible to use either. If you’re not spoiled by more polished and focused Virtual Reality applications, then your brain will definitely feel tricked into thinking you are actually throwing a paper airplane or shooting a toy gun at some circles.

Playing with a Toy in Horizon Worlds

The real meat of what Facebook’s Metaverse is though, is revealed at the end of the tutorial. Where you get to select which sort of world you want to enter.

The Heart of Facebook’s Metaverse. Selecting Worlds.

This is what puts the “Metaverse” in Facebook’s new “Meta” name, the worlds that you can visit inside of Horizon Worlds. You may have expected to enter a city of some kind, where, like in a real world space, you could walk to a store or an arcade, or any virtually enhanced version of any of these places in VR.

Instead you go to a menu and select the world you want to enter based on a thumbnail and description. Then you just wait through a loading screen and appear there.

A Fishing World in Horizon Worlds

The Many Worlds of Facebook’s Horizon Worlds

The worlds are the heart of Facebook’s Metaverse, and the heart of every Virtual Reality Game that is now called a “Metaverse.” You, as your avatar, are closely mirrored in this world by your physical actions, and whatever the world is intended for is what you do.

Comedy club? Feel free to get on stage and tell some jokes. Game? Play the game as intended. The worlds of Horizon Worlds are what makes it a Metaverse. The ability to enter a place as a closely virtually represented version of your physical form and hang out as you would in real life… as much as is possible.

A Zombie Fighting Game in Facebook’s Metaverse

The best part is that users make their own worlds. You’re not limited to what Meta (aka Facebook) has created and intended for you to use. There’s a level editor with a tutorial and everything. You can create environments and script them to do basic things to create a theoretically infinite amount of possibilities. Then anyone can join your world and hang out in it. That is the current realization of the concept of a Metaverse in Facebook’s Metaverse, Horizon Worlds.

The Limits of Facebook’s Metaverse

Here’s the problem though, there really aren’t an infinite amount of possibilities in Horizon Worlds, or any so-called Metaverse right now. Also, the concept of inhabiting a virtual space in a more immersive way with a VR headset is not unique to Facebook’s Metaverse. That same immersive feeling is also capture in… basically any Virtual Reality game.

The level editors are limited in what they can make. There are only so many assets to be used, and those assets all have the same sort of blocky and simplistic aesthetic. The scripting is limited, and even though enterprising world creators have done a lot with what is available, not every sort of experience can be created in Horizon Worlds in a way that is as fun and satisfying to play as it would be in a separate Virtual Reality game of its own.

The Creation Tutorial in Meta’s Horizon Worlds

At the end of the day Facebook’s Metaverse is really just another game on your Virtual Reality headset. Games that were created to be focused on a single thing, like solving puzzles or fighting zombies, do those single things much better than Horizon Worlds’ generalized creation platform can. So naturally people tend to play other games instead of doing virtually everything through Horizon Worlds’ metaverse. You’re better off playing The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners on your Quest headset than playing a zombie game in Horizon Worlds, if you want an exciting zombie fighting experience.

More than anything else, Horizon Worlds doesn’t feel much like exploring a real place. Teleporting from world to world is inherently artificial feeling. So overall you’re not exploring a virtual representation of a real place, but instead just teleporting from room to room, game to game. It’s more of a collection of game rooms than a world to be explored. You won’t naturally walk by a building and decide to walk in, you’ll view it on a menu and decide to click it. It’s an artificial feeling experience.

Facebook’s Metaverse Is Not Alone - Alternatives to Horizon Worlds

Facebook (aka Meta) also did not invent the Metaverse concept as we can experience it today in Horizon Worlds. In fact Facebook’s Metaverse was not the first to be created by a long shot. Others, which are all also available on Meta’s Quest devices, existed much earlier, and are basically the same sort of experience.

An Alternative to Facebook’s Metaverse - Rec Room

Rec Room is a good example. As mentioned in this list of free Quest 2 games, Rec Room has you create an avatar, and is played by joining a world with others in it. You can even also create worlds of your own in Rec Room, just like in Horizon Worlds. There are games like paintball and tag, and spaces to hang out, meet people, and talk. It’s the same thing as Horizon Worlds, just with a different company behind it and a different look to it.

A Socially focused Horizon World’s Alternative - VRChat

VRChat is probably the most infamous example of a Metaverse, and the first to gain prominence in the VR community. VRChat has a much greater emphasis on collecting outlandish avatars from wolf people to literal dragons, and is intended for just hanging out and chatting. Just like in Horizon Worlds and Rec Room, you explore by teleporting from virtual place to virtual place. The main difference is that VRChat is much more limited in the activities that can be done. It’s more of a purely social Metaverse.

Conclusions on Metaverses

So Facebook’s Metaverse, and Metaverses in general, are not exactly what has been advertised right now. Could they become more immersive virtual spaces in the future? Sure. Right now though, they’re basically just Virtual Reality social applications. They aren’t really lived in spaces that operate at all like a real world. The dream of the Metaverse is still in progress, and maybe Meta or another company will create a truly immersive and dynamic VR world in the future.

For now this is what we have in Facebook’s Metaverse, and all the other “Metaverses” just like it.