Roblox, one of the most metaverse-like platforms before the term was even a thing, is joining Meta. No, Zuckerberg hasn’t opened his wallet and made its owners an offer they can’t refuse. The popular game/virtual world is adding a new platform to its ever-growing repertoire — the Meta Quest series of headsets.
Roblox has been around for ages. Not as long as Second Life, one of its more similar competitors, but certainly longer than Fortnite, the gaming juggernaut with a similar appeal (but without the user customisation). Its appearance on Meta’s hardware will advance the idea that Zuckerberg’s platform is the place to experience virtual worlds.
Virtually the same Roblox
The news comes via King Zuckerberg himself, as well as an official post on the Roblox website. It’s not a proper launch. Not yet. Instead, an open beta is launching on the platform’s App Lab distribution system. It’ll be available to all of Meta’s VR hardware users (provided they’re using the Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro for the beta) over the age of thirteen.
There are bound to be some kinks to work out, hence the large open testing period, but players will apparently be able to interact with other users on a cross-platform basis. Since this isn’t Call of Duty, that’s actually a workable model. Mobile, Xbox, and PC players should be able to hang around with Meta Quest users, with only the typical teething issues to look out for.
First Play: The Viewfinder demo will have to do until the full game launches later this month
Once that’s all sorted, though? That’s when Roblox hopes to let “developers…publish their existing experiences to support VR with little to no additional coding effort required”. That’s broadly what the metaverse was supposed to be, after all. At the very least, the virtual reality experience should pick up more users than Decentraland has managed to date.