Meta has had a hectic week. Mark Zuckerberg revealed via Facebook on Monday that the social metaverse platform, Horizon Worlds, would be made available in France and Spain. The Facebook post was accompanied by a picture of Zuckerberg’s avatar taking a selfie in front of simplistic reconstructions of the Eiffel Tower and the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. Zuckerberg’s avatar had the pale, lifeless appearance of a Victorian ghost. The cartoonish visuals were then criticized by commenters and internet users during the course of the following week. Probably not what the project’s designers had in mind when they set out to bring in the digital age.
A rendering of an area resembling ancient Rome and an update regarding Horizon Worlds were both provided by Mark Zuckerberg on Friday. “The photo I posted earlier this week was quite simple – it was taken really fast to celebrate at launch,” he said in the post. Horizon Worlds is “capable of much more,” Zuckerberg continued.
It does appear better with these pictures. This time, there is lighting, and his avatar’s face has a genuine expression. It still doesn’t exactly appear to be a place where one would like to spend time, but I think that depends on who is looking at it.
You may play Horizon Worlds with a Quest VR headset. In the first two months following its launch in December 2021, it increased to 300,000 users, and in February, the Horizon Worlds Twitter account announced that more than 10,000 new worlds had been created. However, Meta hasn’t made it clear how it intends to control the expanding platform.
As part of Meta’s ongoing product expansion, Horizon Worlds will be be available on mobile devices. In order to be more like Roblox, Horizon Worlds also introduced “in-world purchases” for a “handful” of developers. In fact, when Zuckerberg first envisioned Horizon Worlds, it did resemble that specific children’s gaming platform quite a bit.