Category Archives: Games

‘Batman: Arkham VR’ Sequel Cancelled Amid Meta XR Studio Closures

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Meta’s recent rash of studio closures means that the planned sequel to Batman: Arkham Shadow has also officially been cancelled.

Batman: Arkham Shadow (2024) was developed by Camouflaj, released exclusively on Quest 3 in late 2024, coming just one week after the launch of Meta’s $300 Quest 3S.

Although it was confirmed the sequel was already underway, with Mark Rolston tapped to reprise his role as Commissioner Gordon, the next Batman: Arkham Shadow VR game is now cancelled.

And it’s not due to poor reception of the game—we scored it a solid [8.5/10] in our review—or recent headcount reductions at Camouflaj, which Meta acquired in 2022. It’s due to Meta’s recent closure of Sanzaru Games, developer of Asgard’s Wrath.

As confirmed by UploadVR, Sanzaru was apparently tasked with production of the Batman: Arkham Shadow sequel. With the broader shakeup at Reality Labs, which saw a reported 10 percent staff layoff, Meta has closed Sanzaru Games along with Armature Studio (Resident Evil 4 VR port) and Twisted Pixel (Deadpool VR).

Additionally, budget cuts reportedly also saw the cancellation of a Harry Potter VR game for Quest, which was supposedly being developed by Skydance Games.

This comes amid a broader shift at Meta’s Reality Labs division, as the company appears to be making a clean break from VR game development and its wider metaverse ambitions as it doubles down on AI and smart glasses production.

Meanwhile, Meta and hardware partner EssilorLuxottica are reportedly upping their target for smart glasses production from 10 million to 20+ million units by the end of this year.

The post ‘Batman: Arkham VR’ Sequel Cancelled Amid Meta XR Studio Closures appeared first on Road to VR.

Meta is Deleting ‘Horizon Workrooms’ Next Month as Metaverse Ambitions Cool

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Meta announced it’s discontinuing Horizon Workrooms next month, its productivity-focused VR platform, marking another step in the company’s ongoing restructuring of its VR and metaverse strategy.

Originally launched in 2021 on Quest 2, Workrooms was not only the company’s answer to remote work following the COVID-19 pandemic, but also a first big push to make the Quest platform into a productivity device.

The platform allows up to 50 total participants to interact in a shared space, which includes a mix of 16 Quest users (max) and users patching in through standard video calls.

Image courtesy Meta

Amid a drastic budget reduction in VR and metaverse though, which has seen the closure of three internal XR game studios and a reported 10 percent of Reality Labs laid off, Workrooms is also getting the boot next month.

“Workrooms showed how Meta Horizon can help bring people together to work, collaborate and connect. Meta Horizon has since developed into a social platform that supports a wide range of productivity apps and tools,” Meta says in a Horizon Workrooms help thread. “As a result, Meta has made the decision to discontinue Workrooms as a standalone app, effective February 16, 2026.”

For existing users, Meta has not announced a direct replacement for Workrooms; the company suggests users look into third-party apps such as Arthur, Microsoft Teams Immersive and Zoom Workplace.

The post Meta is Deleting ‘Horizon Workrooms’ Next Month as Metaverse Ambitions Cool appeared first on Road to VR.

Meta Is Shutting Down Its Quest For Business Program

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Meta is shutting down its Quest for Business program in 2030, ending sales of commercial SKUs next month, and reducing existing subscriptions to $0/month.

Called Meta Horizon Managed Services since last year, the program was the latest iteration of the company’s official offering for businesses to adopt its headsets, including a business license, priority support, and mass device management (MDM).

It started as Oculus for Business, a $900 SKU of the original Oculus Rift launched in 2017. Enterprise SKUs of Oculus Go and Oculus Quest were also made available in this program, until it was replaced by Meta Quest for Business in late 2023, before being renamed to Meta Horizon Managed Services last year, a change which also made the program mandatory for enterprise use.

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Under the program, Quest headsets were sold at their regular consumer price plus a monthly subscription. There were two tiers of subscription available, Individual Mode for $15/month per headset or Shared Mode for $24/month per headset.

Individual Mode provisions the headset for one specific person, with their own Meta account, while Shared Mode shows a heavily streamlined system interface with only the apps remotely selected by the administrator available, and the settings are also pre-configured.

Administrators could manage headsets with Meta’s Admin Center, or existing enterprise user management platforms like Microsoft Intune, VMware Workspace ONE, and Ivanti UEM.

Meta Is Shutting Down Horizon Workrooms Next Month
Meta is shutting down its Horizon Workrooms VR meeting software on February 16, with no direct replacement for its online meetings functionality.
UploadVRDavid Heaney

From February 20, Meta says it will stop selling commercial SKUs of Quest headsets, stop taking new customers for the Horizon Managed Services subscription, and reduce the subscription price for existing customers to $0/month.

From January 4, 2030, four years from now, the program will be shut down, and the software will cease to function.

“On behalf of Meta, we thank you for your support and partnership”, the company tells the businesses that trusted it.

The news comes on the same week the company closed three of its acquired game studios, gutted another, stopped updates for its fitness service, canceled the sequel for Batman: Arkham Shadow, and announced the shutdown of Workrooms, all part of a wider move to shift spending from VR towards smart glasses.

Meta Is Shutting Down Horizon Workrooms Next Month

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Meta is shutting down its Horizon Workrooms VR meeting software on February 16.

If you’re unaware, Workrooms is Meta’s collaborative productivity app for Quest headsets, first launched in 2021. Workrooms lets you view your PC monitor inside VR and share your screen with teammates as Meta Avatars in a virtual meeting room. People who don’t own a Quest can join via webcam through a web interface.

The app also has a solo Personal Office which gives you free extra monitors, effectively turning your laptop into a triple monitor setup.

Facebook Launches Horizon Workrooms To Power Remote Work
Facebook is moving to power remote work with a collaborative platform called Horizon Workrooms. The new service launches as an open beta testing release today free to use on the Web over video call or embodied in Oculus Quest 2, with the latter being the only entry point requiring a
UploadVRIan Hamilton

In summer 2024, Meta released an overhaul of Workrooms that streamlined the interface while removing major features, leading to significant backlash from users.

The update removed the virtual whiteboard in meeting rooms, a flagship feature of the app which the Touch Pro controllers were designed around, as well as all meeting room customization, the web-based text chat and file sharing system, and tracked keyboard support.

The main upside of the overhaul was its improvements to the solo Personal Office. But just over a year ago, Meta and Microsoft launched the official Windows 11 Remote Desktop feature for Quest’s Horizon OS, which also allows spawning virtual extra side monitors.

The official Windows 11 Remote Desktop feature runs as OS-level windows, meaning that it supports the seamless multitasking feature added to Horizon OS in 2024, letting you use your PC while inside any VR or mixed reality app.

Quest 3’s Windows 11 Remote Desktop Gets Aspect Ratio Setting & Ultrawide Mode
The official Windows 11 Remote Desktop of Horizon OS now has 21:9 and 3:4 aspect ratio options, as well as an enveloping visionOS-like Ultrawide Mode.
UploadVRDavid Heaney

Essentially, the Windows 11 integration fully supersedes the Personal Office of Workrooms. But what Meta isn’t providing a replacement for is the online multi-user meeting room functionality.

Meta officially recommends Workrooms users to switch to Arthur, Microsoft Teams Immersive, or any other virtual meetings software on the Horizon Store. An example we’d point out is Fluid, which has excellent reviews and a strong focus on sharing your screen with others in VR.

“From 16 February 2026, you will no longer be able to access Workrooms, and any data associated with Workrooms will be deleted”, Meta notes.

The news comes on the same week the company closed three of its acquired game studios, gutted another, stopped updates for its fitness service, and canceled the sequel for Batman: Arkham Shadow, a wider move to shift spending from VR towards smart glasses.