Meta’s VR gaming push is shrinking, and you’ll feel it

By Paulo Vargas Published January 14, 2026

Meta has begun cutting more than 1,000 roles in Reality Labs, and the fallout is landing on the teams that made some of VR’s biggest-name games.

Meta is also shifting money and attention away from the most expensive metaverse bets and toward AI hardware and mobile-first experiences. If you own a Quest headset, that shift can translate into fewer prestige releases, longer waits between new launches, and less clarity on what Meta will fund next. It’s a big change from the period when Meta treated standout games as a reason to buy into its platform.

Reality Labs is still the umbrella for VR and mixed reality work, but it’s increasingly being asked to do more with less. The layoffs are another marker that Meta wants tighter spending and faster payoffs.

The cuts aren’t just on an org chart. Meta has closed the studios behind Resident Evil 4 on Quest and Marvel’s Deadpool VR, a move that shows how quickly the company is trimming internal game development.

Bloomberg reported the Reality Labs layoffs would top 1,000 jobs as Meta reshuffles resources. Engadget also pointed to an internal memo from CTO Andrew Bosworth that framed wearables as a bigger priority, including its AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses. Put together, it looks like Meta is reallocating talent and budget toward products it thinks can scale sooner.

When a platform owner shrinks its game teams, the effects show up in your library. Fewer in-house studios usually means fewer exclusives built to spotlight new hardware features, and more dependence on third-party developers that need a strong business case to stay in VR.

Money is the pressure point. Reality Labs has lost more than $70 billion since 2020 and still hasn’t posted a profit. That kind of sustained loss makes it harder to justify big, risky game budgets, even when the results are critically loved.

Engadget also noted Meta doesn’t have a Quest 3 follow-up planned anytime soon. That slows the usual cycle where new hardware and new games reinforce each other.

Meta says VR is still part of the plan, but VR gaming is no longer driving the agenda. Expect more ports, updates, and smaller releases, with fewer tentpole bets that require years of staffing.

The clearest tell will be how Meta talks about games around its next hardware announcements. If demos lean into AI features and utility instead of major new titles, you’ll know where the company thinks the next growth is. Until then, buy new hardware for what you can play now, not what might arrive later.