spatialcomputing.info

Today at Connect, Meta said it’s rolling out an updated version of the engine that powers Horizon Worlds. The new tech will purportedly speed up loading of Horizon Worlds spaces and allow up to 100 users in a single space.

The new tech, which Meta is calling the ‘Horizon Engine’ is said to be replacing the original foundation of Horizon Worlds which was based on Unity. The engine has been rebuilt with the goals of Horizon Worlds in mind—namely, enabling players to hop between interconnected social spaces.

Meta says the new system can increase loading times for Worlds spaces by four times, making jumping between different spaces more seamless. The improved performance also means that Worlds experiences can now host up to 100 players simultaneously, which is five times as many as the previous limit.

Meta says it has also rebuilt ‘Horizon Home’ using the new engine, which is the default space you see when you put on Quest. This purportedly brings improved visual quality and some functionality upgrades, like being able to pin apps to the walls for quick access.

The changes to Horizon Home appear to move Meta one step closer to merging Horizon Home and Horizon Worlds together. Now, running on the same engine, the space will also allow users to pin portals to various Worlds spaces for quick access.

At Connect, Meta also announced that it is working on an ‘agentic editor’ for Horizon Worlds called Meta Horizon Studio. While the company has already released AI features that allow creators to generate various assets for building Worlds experiences, the new agentic editor melds multiple tools together under a chat-based interface.

The new tool allows creators to build new Worlds experiences by asking for additions and changes in natural language, like ‘change the style to sci-fi’, or ‘add a new character that’s a talking bear who is lost and wants the player to help them get home’.

Meta Horizon Studio will be rolling out in beta in the near future, the company says.