After purchasing Oculus, Facebook has been trying to increase the popularity of the platform. In its latest attempt to entice you into the world of VR, they’re creating an immersive environment called Horizon.
The app will be similar to VRChat except a little bit more flashy (We hope). Users will be able to hangout and talk to each other in certain areas, and play games together in others. Like VRChat you’ll be able to stroll around the environment using a variety of avatars.
According to Facebook the app will be available in the first quarter of 2020 for a small group of testers.
Details of the app were displayed at the Oculus Connect 6 developer conference recently. At the event Facebook made a few feature and support related announcements. Apparently, you’ll be able to have real humans guide you along to help familiarize yourself with the environment. Essentially, these guides will be administrators working as both tour guides and prison guards if you get a little too edgy.
You’ll also be able to create your own area and design a custom avatar. From the screenshots I’ve seen the environment has a very cartoonish style, which makes sense due to the low resolution of the Oculus Quest headset.
With the announcement of Horizon, Facebook will shut down it’s other VR environment on October 25th.
Anyone that would like to check out Horizon can sign up for a chance at becoming a beta tester.