There is mystery on the horizon, or rather, in it.
Since unveiling last year, a skin of uncertainty has overcome Facebook Horizon, the company’s new creation-driven social VR experience. It has been amplified by a prolonged silence caused by COVID-19 and, more threateningly, the impending transition to Facebook accounts on Oculus devices. But the veil will lift a bit, as the app opens its doors to the first beta testers in the coming weeks.
So, what exactly is Horizon?
If I shook a magic 8-ball at this question, the most appropriate answer would be, “Ask it again later.” Horizon’s bones are instantly recognizable; it has linked Google Blocks’ accessible VR creation software to Sony’s Dreams content sharing ecosystem. Add its social element and it draws direct comparisons to the user-generated content of Rec Room, and swap the community tools of that app with their own Facebook-powered offerings.
So, yes, you can meet friends and very soon start thinking about new virtual worlds and objects together. Within moments of entering the platform’s creative mode, myself and David Jagneaux of Upload pulled virtual shapes from floating menus to bring hats together. I can not completely control my crazy laughs about the scale function, which allows you to directly grow or shrink in a space with others, allowing me to turn David into an ant and appear as a giant to him.
That said, without the right tutorials on board, it’s hard to talk about just how intuitive creative mode is. Flashing the sticks of the Touch ride through tools like packing and grouping, but I get hurt and continue to need a Facebook travel guide (visibly labeled as a community guide) to come over and help me like I do in the arts – and craft session are in kindergarten. The basics are all there; I would just need more time to discover how deep it goes.
At the moment, however, Horizon is more unanimous about this approach than Rec Room, apparently less concerned with cosmetic unlocking and other social VR crap (at least from what we see). Your first steps in the app will be in the Plaza, a general hub world where you will see users running from house to house, each leading to new worlds created by the user. Every creation we see here, we are told, was created in-app with the same tools that everyone else has access to, up to the Plaza itself.
The Facebook In Facebook Horizon
Last week’s news that Oculus headsets will soon require Facebook sign-ups for new accounts, combined with this week’s announcement from Facebook Connect, sends a clear signal that Horizon – and future services – will be fully embedded in the social platform. We did not have enough time in our tour and interview to fully explore the scope of Facebook integration, but here are a few things we know.
– The Facebook Horizon friends system works through Oculus IDs, not your Facebook friends.
– Images created in the app can be shared with Facebook at the touch of a button.
– Facebook will pre-approve ‘Community Guides’ that are visibly marked on the hand.
– You can instantly press a shield button on your wrist to enter a virtual ‘Safe Zone’ that mutes people around you and distracts them from view.
– When you report an account, they will be invisible to you immediately and their activity will be monitored, although the barometers of how and when remain unclear.
– Horizon will also send the last few minutes prior to your report to Facebook for review, but the company says it will only send this footage if you create the report and delete it.
We visit two worlds. One is a multiplayer shooter in which players race to reach targets with water balloons fired from handheld cannons. The other is a collaborative puzzle challenge in which two players give each other information to guide a block in a target zone, while others look out of an audience area.
This is all unbelievably impressive. The puzzle game has a driving instructions for barking cube with us, and multiple areas to move on as you move on to new challenges. And, even with just a few minutes in maker mode, I can begin to lay the foundations on which these games were built. You can capture all the moments with selfies and post them to Facebook pages and walls, as you would expect.
What it is not, however, is primarily new. Software that allows those with little coding experience to create their own games – both in and out of VR – is advancing rapidly, and in its current form, Horizon strikes me as a fairly uniform entry into that genre.
However, Meaghan Fitzgerald, Head of Experiences of Facebook Reality Labs for Product Marketing, wants to emphasize the social element of Horizon as a distinguishing factor. “We learned early on when we started working with some makers last year that there was a kind of this ‘aha’ moment when you realized that the world was built by someone else, after which you can meet and interact with, “she says,” and at its core, Horizon is a social product, we want it to be the place where communities do not necessarily form a AAA game, that is not what we are building here. “
Personally, I’m not convinced that Horizon can really differentiate itself. It goes without saying that in a 20-minute interview with Fitzgerald and Horizon Product Management Director, Ari Grant, myself and David suggest a range of possible avenues that for the most part all meet with the same response: “We’ll see.”
Will Horizon support hand-tracking? Will it come to Steam and PSVR? Can we import Unity creations? Will you be able to travel between these and other Facebook social VR services? Will the avatars replace the original Oculus designs? Will Facebook-owned studios like Beat Games and Ready At Dawn create unique Horizon content?
Each of these questions is answered with a variety of well-repeated evasions and unclear possibilities. Some are clearly conscious; when launching the app on Rift, I apparently launch a desktop version in which I can run and view with a mouse and keyboard. It may be a development tool, but Grant is surprised “Oh” when I tell him to suggest more play.
But, whatever the reasons for this selection of half-answers, all contribute to a broader conclusion: even Facebook, to its own admission, does not really fully understand what Horizon is. is yet.
And that’s absolutely fine. It’s to be expected, even if you’re still waiting for the locks to open and see what people are actually starting to do. Horizon must prove itself; it’s one thing we show a suite of Facebook approved creations from pre-approved creators, it will be another thing complete to moderate and manage a growing pool of user made VR worlds.
I can see a version of Horizon that is distinctive and dynamic, one with game-made games and experiences that are truly intertwined as fun novelties, perhaps combined with short visits to the worlds of Beat Saber, Lone Echo or Asgard’s Wrath and available across a wide range of platforms. I might even be able to jump right in from, say, Oculus Venues, in this toolset with my friends. But that’s not what it’s going to be like, because Facebook is slowly starting to introduce new people into the invited beta. It has yet to be built. It has yet to be proven.
Perhaps most importantly, though, Horizon seems more and more like a piece of Facebook’s social VR puzzle, not the full picture itself. What about other social VR activities, such as watching concerts and other live events? These will still be served in Oculus Venues, which will be redesigned to support the same avatars as seen in Horizon. You have to imagine that other ideas also get their own dedicated apps further, each adding to the story.
It’s that broader picture that I’m most curious about right now. Horizon fills in another blank for Facebook’s social VR endgame, but the dress is far from over. As Facebook doubles down on Facebook and Horizon slams its door open, I feel like I’m still waiting for their true vision of a social VR future.
You can sign up for the Facebook Horizon beta right here. What do you think of the service? Let us know in the comments below!
