Social VR

Social VR is a category of virtual reality software in which multiple people share the same virtual space at the same time, represented by avatars and able to talk, gesture, and interact with each other and with objects around them. Instead of using VR alone, users of a social VR platform meet other real people inside a 3D environment, which makes the activity closer to hanging out, attending an event, or playing a party game than to watching media or playing a single-player title. Social VR is one of the main building blocks people have in mind when they discuss the wider Metaverse idea.

The category covers a range of products, from open creative platforms like VRChat where almost everything is built by users, to game-focused services like Rec Room, to single-purpose apps like Bigscreen that exist mainly so friends can watch films together. Most run on standalone headsets such as the Meta Quest line as well as on PC VR, and several also offer non-VR clients on phones, desktop, and game consoles so that people without a headset can join the same rooms.

Typical features

Although social VR platforms differ in tone and purpose, most share a common set of features that separate them from flat video chat.

Avatars give each person a body in the space. Depending on the platform, an avatar can be a simple cartoon figure, a customised character, or, on more open systems, a fully custom 3D model uploaded by the user. On VRChat, for example, avatars and worlds are made by users with a Unity software development kit, and the service hosts millions of user-made avatars.

Voice chat is usually spatial, meaning it uses 3D audio so a voice sounds like it comes from the direction and distance of the speaker's avatar. If someone stands to your left, you hear them on your left; if they walk away, they get quieter. This positional or proximity voice chat lets several conversations happen in one room at once, much as they would at a real party, because you mainly hear the people near you.

Body language comes from headset and controller tracking. The position of the head and hands is enough to convey nodding, pointing, waving, and turning to face whoever is talking. Headsets and platforms that support eye tracking, face tracking, or full-body tracking add expressions and posture on top of that, which makes avatars feel more present and conversation more natural.

User-generated worlds are central to the most popular platforms. Rather than shipping a fixed set of rooms, services like VRChat and Rec Room give users creation tools and let them build and publish their own spaces, games, and items, which other users can then visit. This is why an open social VR platform can hold hundreds of thousands of distinct worlds without the operator building any of them.

Relationship to the metaverse

Social VR is often treated as an early, partial version of the Metaverse, the idea of a persistent network of shared 3D spaces that Neal Stephenson described in his 1992 novel Snow Crash. The connection is direct: a metaverse, as usually imagined, is a place where many people are present together as avatars, socialising and doing business, which is exactly what social VR platforms already do on a smaller scale.

When Facebook renamed itself Meta in 2021 and pointed its strategy at the metaverse, its flagship consumer app was a social VR platform, Horizon Worlds. The two concepts are not identical, though. Most social VR platforms are separate products that do not connect to each other, a person cannot carry one avatar between them, and many people argue that a true metaverse would need open standards linking many worlds together rather than a set of walled platforms. Today's social VR is better described as a collection of destinations than a single connected universe.

Major platforms

VRChat is the largest and best known open social VR platform. It was created by Graham Gaylor and Jesse Joudrey and first released for Windows and the Oculus Rift on January 16, 2014, then reached wider audiences through Steam Early Access on February 1, 2017. Almost all of its content is made by users, and it has grown into one of the most active VR applications: it reached a peak of 136,567 concurrent users on January 1, 2025, and reports around 8.2 million registered accounts.

Rec Room was a cross-platform social and game-making service. It was founded in April 2016 under the studio name Against Gravity and launched for the HTC Vive on June 1, 2016, later spreading to phones, consoles, PC, and other headsets so users on different devices could play together. The company said it reached more than 150 million accounts over roughly a decade, but on March 31, 2026 it announced it would shut down in early June 2026 because the business could not cover its costs; Snap Inc. bought some of its assets but did not keep the platform running.

Meta Horizon Worlds, from Meta Platforms, was released on December 9, 2021 to users 18 and older in the United States and Canada, and was promoted as Meta's main metaverse app. It struggled with retention on VR, and in 2023 Meta began shifting it toward mobile. In March 2026 Meta announced that it would remove the Horizon Worlds app from Quest entirely on June 15, 2026, ending the VR version, while keeping the platform available as a mobile app.

Bigscreen is a more focused social VR app built around shared screens: people use it to watch films, play games, and use a PC desktop together in virtual rooms. It was founded in 2014 by Darshan Shankar, and its Bigscreen Cinema feature has sold tickets to studio films, including titles from Paramount Pictures, that groups of friends can watch together in a virtual theatre. The company later branched into hardware, releasing the compact Bigscreen Beyond headset in 2023.

AltspaceVR was one of the earliest social VR platforms and a pioneer of holding live events in VR. It was founded in 2013 by Eric Romo and launched its first product in May 2015. Microsoft acquired it in 2017, then announced its closure in January 2023 and shut it down on March 10, 2023, in order to move its mixed reality efforts toward Microsoft Mesh and its business customers.

The table below lists notable social VR platforms.

Platform	Developer	Notes
VRChat	VRChat, Inc.	Released 2014; large open platform built almost entirely from user-made avatars and worlds.
Rec Room	Rec Room Inc. (Against Gravity)	Founded 2016; cross-platform social and game-making service. Announced shutdown in 2026; some assets bought by Snap.
Meta Horizon Worlds	Meta Platforms	Released 2021 as Meta's flagship metaverse app. VR version removed from Quest in June 2026; continues on mobile.
Bigscreen	Bigscreen, Inc.	Founded 2014; focused on watching films and sharing screens in VR. Also makes the Bigscreen Beyond headset.
AltspaceVR	Microsoft (formerly AltspaceVR, Inc.)	Launched 2015; early events-focused social VR platform. Acquired by Microsoft in 2017 and shut down in March 2023.
High Fidelity	High Fidelity, Inc.	Open-source social VR platform founded by Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life. Pivoted away from its VR product to enterprise 3D audio in 2019.

Common uses

The most common use of social VR is simply socialising: meeting friends, making new ones, and spending time together in a shared space, often around informal activities like exploring a world, listening to music, or playing small games. Because avatars and spatial voice give a strong sense of being in the same place, many users describe it as closer to seeing people in person than a phone call or video chat.

Live events are another major use. Social VR platforms host meetups, talks, comedy nights, club nights, watch parties, and concerts, where many avatars gather in one venue. Hosting events was a defining feature of AltspaceVR and remains common on VRChat and other platforms.

Education, training, and remote collaboration also use social VR, since being together in a 3D space can help people learn, practise, or work on something that is easier to understand in three dimensions than over a flat screen. Research on social VR has looked at how features like full-body avatars and spatial audio support communication and teamwork among people in different places.