As a part of its big send off, Meta has already deprecated first-party social features on the original 2019 Quest, which includes access to Parties and Meta Horizon Home. If you thought you could keep using Quest 1 with other social VR platforms though, your choices are about to get even more limited, as VRChat is soon dropping support too.
The studio announced it was dropping support in a recent developer update, stating that VRChat will no longer provide support for the Meta Quest 1 headset after June 30th, 2023.
“This is primarily due to Meta’s deprecation of the Quest 1 SDK, which will prevent us from keeping VRChat updated properly on the device,” the studio says. “You can continue to use Quest 1 with Quest Link, Virtual Desktop, ALVR, or other tethering methods to connect your Quest 1 to a Windows PC. Please note that those other applications may also be deprecating the Quest 1, so keep an eye on their announcements and news posts.”
VRChat isn’t the only app losing Quest support. One of the first to go, Meta’s BigBox VR already dropped Quest 1 support for its battle royale shooter Population: One late last year. Then followed Rec Room in early January 2023.
Meta’s Downpour Interactive announced in February its mil-sim shooter Onward will be dropping Quest 1 support on July 31st. Other games seeing upcoming support freezes include Myst, Zenith: The Lost City, and Synth Riders. We expect to see many more in the coming months, as the back catalogue of games is slowly phased or completely dropped.
