Late last week, Facebook Spaces officially shut down ahead of the launch of Facebook’s new social experience, Facebook Horizon, in 2020.
A statement now occupies the Facebook Spaces site, which informs users the app is no longer available as of October 25, 2019. The statement also notes that Facebook is “grateful to each and every one of you who joined us in the experience” and that they look forward to users joining them in Horizon next year.
Facebook Spaces was announced in 2017 and available on the Rift and the HTC Vive. However, it never made its way to the Oculus Quest, much like other Oculus services like Home and Rooms.
Horizon will be available on the Rift and the Quest, presumably with crossplay, in 2020, with a closed beta early in the year. Despite Horizon acting as Spaces’ replacement and successor, there is no word on HTC Vive support for Horizon and it seems unlikely that Horizon will support platforms outside of the Oculus ecosystem, at least for now.
We went hands-on with Horizon at OC6 last month, and spoke to some of the development team behind the new social experience. In many ways, Horizon is more like VRChat, Rec Room or AltSpaceVR, but with Facebook integration that ties your in-game avatar to your Facebook account. It remains to be seen if this will be enough to differentiate the platform from Spaces and ensure it doesn’t suffer a similar fate.
Are you sad to see Spaces go? Let us know what you used Spaces for in the comments below.
