Meta announced it’s bringing an ‘Instant Replay’ feature to Horizon Worlds, which will let world creators and visitors capture their antics without having to hit ‘record’ on their cameras.
The feature, which is currently in early access on Horizon Worlds v157, can be enabled by individual world creators, letting anyone in that specific social VR room automatically capture video and share via the media gallery. Meta says it’s specifically built to keep users from disrupting the moment by pausing to open the camera and manually pressing record.
Before entering a world, users will be able to see whether the creator has enabled the Instant Replay via a new camera icon on the world’s page. Once you’ve popped in, you’ll also get a notification in your inbox. Users can opt-out of automatically recording with Instant Replay, although it doesn’t mean you won’t be recorded by someone else, Meta warns.
The v157 update to Horizon Worlds comes amid a larger push by the company to compete with other social VR platforms, including Rec Room, VRChat, and Roblox, all of which not only had early leads in the space, but included a heavy focus on user-generated content.
Meta’s game of catchup largely started in earnest last year when the company announced it was set to officially open the platform to kids ages 13+, later expanding the app to support flatscreen play via web and mobile devices. Then, late last year, the company released a number of first-party mini-games in further efforts to increase user retention.
While Instant Replay may not push active user numbers in Horizon Worlds over the top with promises of greater virality, it may prove to be a valuable testing ground for the feature across its family of Quest devices; for now, the quickest and easiest way to record footage on Quest is to quickly tap the Meta button on your right controller and pull the trigger will allow you to start and stop a video capture.