Get Started In Horizon Worlds!

Earlier in the month you may have seen the announcement of Facebook/Meta's Horizon Worlds - a free virtual reality social video game exclusive to the Quest platform in which you can interact with others online, create and explore worlds together!

If you are familiar with other social games like VR Chat or Rec Room, the experience will feel very similar. Like both, you can meet with friends (or make new ones) in various worlds created by other users.

This guide will go over how to get started, what to expect, some tips on creating worlds of your own as well as recommended worlds to visit!

Things To Know Before You Play

• To play Horizon Worlds, you must be 18 and older.
• This should probably go without saying, but you must connect your Facebook account to Horizon Worlds.
• You must have an Oculus avatar, but these are super fun and easy to create! An in game prompt will take you to the avatar editor where you can customize everything from your body type, hair, individual facial features, clothing, and more! If you aren't happy with the final results - not to worry, you can change your look whenever you want!

 

Getting Started
Horizon Worlds features a few different locomotion options depending on your comfort level. The default is teleport to move but you can change this to slide, and you can change the rotation to be either instant or degree based. You can disable or enable specific comfort assistant options (vignetting) individually for moving, turning, jumping and falling if you'd like.

By pressing the menu button on your left controller, you'll access your 'wearable' which you'll use to get access to the home menu (to find friends, access and create different worlds) but also to access your safe zone (more on that later), toggle your microphone on/off and to bring out the camera.

 
Safety In Horizon Worlds
Horizon Worlds has added a safety feature to their game which they call the "safe zone". You can access this from your wearable, it creates a private space no matter where you are, where no one will be able to see nor near you.

You can also use the safe zone to mute, block, or report people and content.

Creating Your Own Worlds
Horizon Worlds makes it super quick and easy for you to create worlds for yourself and others to explore in and play.

There are a few buttons you should get comfortable with, and that is the build mode button (down on the joystick on your right hand) and preview mode (left hand thumbstick up).

While in build mode you can also move around the space by grabbing with the trigger and moving yourself along. If you hold both triggers, you will zoom yourself in and out and if you hold both triggers, but slide one, you will rotate. 

To bring objects into the world, open the build menu by pressing the menu button on your left controller. From here you can pick from a variety of shapes, and you can also use this menu to paint the shapes, add gizmos (triggers, doors, spawn points, text and much much more) and sound (effects, background or music)

Once you have added a shape to the world (pull them out of the menu and into the world) there are various ways you can resahape them! To scale and object, grab it using both triggers and spread your hands apart to make the object bigger, or bring them together to make it smaller.

When you put your cursor on an object you will notice various colored arrows and cubes. By grabbing the red arrow with your trigger, you can slide it along its axis for smooth movement.

To stretch or flatten the object, grab the cube with your trigger and move it in the direction you'd like it to go.

Finally, to rotate an object long its axis, grab the curved arrow with your trigger and spin the object to it's desired direction. Remember that these arrows are on all sides of the object!

If you want to duplicate an object, simply hold on to it using your trigger and slide the joystick to the right of whatever hand is holding onto that object.

Feeling a little lost? Not to worry! Horizon Worlds features in game tutorials for those of you looking to learn either the basics or more advance building.

Worlds You Should Check Out
Some worlds are for socializing, and some are for gaming! We've visited a ton of worlds, and these were some of our favorites:

The Plaza
This is most likely the first World you will visit as it was created by Facebook, but it's a great place to start out with - getting the hang of all the controls and meeting new people!

Krustyland by VRPlug
Fans of 'The Simpsons' will definetly recognize and have a great time with this creator built map.

Magic Mania by 5andw1ch
Explore this magical world and see how the various wand element types effect the environment!

Lair of the Leo by Cakers_Sunflower
This is a gorgeous world to hangout in and the amount of detail put into 'Leo' himself is absolutely incredible. Definitely not one to miss!

While this guide definitely doesn't cover everything Horizon Worlds has to offer, there are some things you'll just have to jump in and try for yourself! Have fun exploring, and stay safe out there!