*Clicks watch*. Alright. That’s six months since Meta’s ‘legs’ announcement. The ‘metaverse’ concept has been drained of most of its love like a swamp being cleared for a new suburb, with many of the major big tech companies repositioning to focus on AI instead of the vague and ill-defined ‘web3’. Possibly one of the most telling moments of the whole shebang was when Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, took to the virtual stage at ‘Meta Connect’ to unveil the company’s premium new VR headset, new VR applications and… That legs were coming to Horizon Worlds, the company’s social VR app.
Such a commitment was seen as less than lukewarm, with observers left confused at this clown car of a focus.
This is ridiculous. It has been exactly half a year. Where are my legs https://t.co/extzi4wqXE
— reddit contest winner (@ryandeel) April 10, 2023
Amid all of this, legs are still missing from the application. Which, is confusing, considering the amount of hype thrown at the novel idea.
Back in October 2022, Zuckerberg said that legs were “the most requested feature on our roadmap.” Not important enough to roll out in six months, I suppose. He added that “legs are hard,” which is really weird, considering that many of Horizon Worlds’ competitors have legs.
Actually, funny that – here’s a fun quote: when talking about how legs are hard, Zuckerberg said, “That’s why other virtual reality systems don’t have them either.”
Here are three: VRChat, NeosVR and ChilloutVR. Obviously none of these exist with the same hoard of money that Meta controls across its gigantic company, but they’re also less lifeless. Community-made content is at the heart of these games, and while VRChat picked up controversy last year for its anti-cheat decision, these games just have so much more soul than Horizon World’s corporate-looking trainwreck.
Anyway, it shouldn’t surprise you that Horizon Worlds isn’t a particularly popular game. Meanwhile, VRChat boasts impressive day-to-day player numbers on Steam, and that’s with Meta Quest 2 users unaccounted for.
And, honestly, as someone who’s used Horizon Worlds, I don’t think there’s any real reason to use it at the moment, especially when better alternatives are readily available, whether you own a Meta Quest headset or not. It’s joyless and looks bad at the best of times.
And that’s probably Horizon Worlds’ biggest problem – legs can’t solve it.
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