Meta Connect: 3D films and social VR – the future of virtual reality
Connect 2025 is almost entirely focused on AI glasses and new interfaces. Virtual reality remains part of the programme, but the focus is clearly shifting.
Entertainment on the big screen is becoming an increasingly important part of Meta's VR strategy.
(Image: Meta)
The big stage at Connect now belongs to glasses, not headsets. Meta presented three new models from the Ray-Ban and Oakley series, a neural wristband, and a clearly recognizable strategy for AI wearables suitable for everyday use. Nevertheless, the company is sending a clear signal to the VR community: VR is alive and development continues – Just away from the spotlight. Let's have a look at this year's VR and mixed reality announcements.
The metaverse continues
A few years ago, the "metaverse" was still omnipresent. In 2025, it was only given a compact block in the middle of the Connect keynote. Nevertheless, Mark Zuckerberg presented some exciting innovations. Instead of new hardware, the Facebook Group is now focusing primarily on infrastructure, tools, content, and platform maintenance.
Meta's billion-dollar social VR platform "Worlds" is getting a new graphics engine: the "Meta Horizon Engine" replaces the previous Unity base and is designed to load complex, graphics-intensive worlds faster and display them more realistically. According to Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, the engine is four times faster when rendering and now supports over 100 simultaneous participants in one room – five times more than before.
For users, this means that in the future, they will be able to interact with significantly more people at the same time in social worlds such as "Horizon Central" or "Arena," for example, at an immersive concert or a live event. The new "Immersive Home" area also makes it easier to enter such environments, as it allows users to jump directly between linked worlds. In the new home environments, users can pin apps to fixed locations and, for example, pin their Instagram feed to the wall like an interactive picture frame.
3D worlds with AI and photorealistic rooms
With the equally new "Meta Horizon Studio," 3D worlds will be created in the future using simple text commands. The system combines existing AI tools for meshes, textures, audio, and scripts with a new assistant that assembles complete environments from them. Meta wants to make creating VR and AR content as easy as writing with a chatbot in the future.
(Image:Â Meta)
For VR users, the presentation of "Hyperscape Capture" was probably the visual highlight of this year's Connect. With the Meta Quest 3 or Quest 3S, photorealistic digital twins of a room can be created in just a few steps and then entered together with friends in VR.
VR gaming becomes a footnote – entertainment is the new star
Many VR studios have been fighting for months for more visibility in the confusing Horizon Store, which is now geared towards social VR and free-to-play content. Now they are also being deprived of this on the big Connect stage. VR gaming has not completely disappeared, but the fact that Meta is not even allowing more time for its own VR blockbuster "Marvel's Deadpool VR" than the mere mention of the name says a lot.
In addition to Deadpool, "Reach" by nDreams, "Star Wars: Beyond Victory" and "Demeo x Dungeons and Dragons: Battlemarked" were also mentioned in a subordinate clause. These are all exciting projects that every VR and mixed reality fan should have on their radar.
(Image:Â Meta / Blumhouse)
A look at the rumour mill explains why: Meta is reportedly planning a compact VR headset for passive media consumption, which will be released before a possible Quest 4 and appeal to a broader target audience. Preparations are apparently already underway at platform level, as entertainment is currently outstripping immersive games. With "Meta Horizon TV", there is now a new entertainment hub for VR headsets with Dolby Atmos and soon also Dolby Vision. There, content from Disney+, Universal and Blumhouse – specifically, Meta has mentioned the films "M3GAN" and "The Black Phone" – will be presented in a more immersive way and enhanced with special 3D effects.
New clip from Avatar: Fire and Ash on Meta Quest
The partnership with James Cameron's production company Lightstorm Vision is also being extended. An exclusive 3D clip from Avatar: Fire and Ash is now available on Horizon TV for a limited time. The Quest 3 has a well-known fan in Cameron. During the keynote, he praised the interplay of brightness, colour space and image resolution on the VR glasses: "It's like having my own cinema at home," said the director. In his opinion, the presentation in the VR glasses is sometimes better than in conventional cinemas, which often work with outdated projection technology.
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According to James Cameron and Andrew Bosworth, CTO of Meta, the aim of the partnership is to establish immersive content for series formats, short films and live TV. To this end, Lightstorm Vision provides other studios with its own 3D camera technology and production systems. In this way, Meta wants to simplify the entry into stereoscopic storytelling and create a broad content landscape for Horizon TV.
Cameron sees this not only as a technical advancement, but also as a new form of distribution: "Movies in cinema quality directly on the head – that's the future," said the filmmaker. Meta hopes this will lead to stronger audience engagement and, in the long term, greater acceptance of immersive media.
Strategic gamble
Meta has made its decision. While VR remains an integral part of the product range, the strategic bet is now finally clear: everyday glasses with AI functions and new interfaces such as the Neural Band are currently at the forefront of the hardware line-up. Nevertheless, Meta is sending a strong signal: those hoping for deep immersion, visual presence, and haptic feedback will continue to receive content.
Partnerships with strong brands such as Disney and Lightstorm Vision are paving the way for specialized devices that are designed for a broader target audience and are more suited to media consumption than immersive gaming. In the future, Quest headsets will occupy the niche of the all-rounder for social VR experiences, gaming, mixed reality, media consumption, and productivity. For VR enthusiasts, this means that the Quest product line will remain (for now), but will no longer be the focus.
(joe)
