What is the current status of the once-booming Metaverse?

Two or three years ago, the repeatedly hyped “Metaverse” has become clearer in its true industry landscape due to the waning narrative hype. As 2025 approaches its end, the global Metaverse industry presents a complex picture of “hot and cold” disparities.

After the boom in 2021 and cooling in 2022, the overall Metaverse ecosystem in 2025 has not declined entirely; instead, some sectors have experienced recovery and breakthroughs.

Meanwhile, some areas still show sluggish growth, forming a stark contrast. Some have reached new highs in user scale and engagement, while others face declining activity or user attrition. This hot-and-cold polarization has become a core observation point for the Metaverse industry in 2025.

Immersive Gaming Platforms: Over 1 Billion Users but Want to “Tear Off” the Metaverse Label

The virtual worlds provided by immersive games are currently the most mature and active sector of the Metaverse. In 2025, immersive UGC gaming platforms continue to grow, with leading platforms performing remarkably.

Among them, Roblox, as an industry bellwether, has hit new highs in user scale and revenue: in Q3 2025, Roblox’s average daily active users reached 151.5 million, a 70% increase year-over-year, and quarterly revenue grew 48% YoY to $1.36 billion. Its massive user base indicates that the UGC Metaverse model combining gaming and social features remains highly sticky and attractive.

However, Roblox’s official statements have not emphasized the Metaverse concept and narrative, only mentioning its vision during the 2021 Metaverse hype period. Now, Roblox prefers to frame its story around “global gaming market,” “platform and creator ecosystem,” and “virtual economy,” without prominently labeling it as “Metaverse.”

In contrast, Epic Games, the developer behind Fortnite, which also has over 100 million monthly active users, still regards its platform as a key gateway to an open Metaverse and interoperable digital ecology. In November 2025, Epic announced a partnership with cross-platform game engine Unity. CEO Tim Sweeney stated that enterprises need to collaborate like in the early days of the internet to build an open Metaverse in an interoperable and fair manner. Sweeney revealed that 40% of Fortnite’s gameplay time occurs in third-party content, i.e., the “Metaverse” part.

Fortnite’s music festivals are original experiences centered on music and rhythm. This year, it collaborated with Hatsune Miku, Sabrina Carpenter (“Craftsman Girl”), Bruno Mars (“Mars Guy”), and BLACKPINK’s Lisa, bringing virtual large-scale music festival experiences to millions of players and fans. Additionally, Roblox partnered with Icelandic-Chinese-American musician Laufey and K-pop girl group Aespa to perform at its official music venue “The Block.” These events demonstrate that immersive platforms still have potential to become new “Digital Third Spaces,” supporting new forms of entertainment and social interaction.

Besides these giants, Minecraft, once widely regarded as a Metaverse gaming ecosystem, rarely brands itself as a Metaverse ecosystem, focusing instead on community and creation. More critically, support for immersive hardware like VR and MR in Minecraft has ended this year. The official Bedrock update notes that support for VR/MR devices will cease after March 2025, and the game can only be played in non-VR/MR modes after the final update.

Overall, in 2025, the immersive gaming platform sector remains “the strong get stronger.” Leading platforms like Roblox continue expanding their user base with large ecosystems and creator communities, while small and medium platforms face declining activity or risks of being absorbed or eliminated. The reduced promotion and strategic abandonment of the Metaverse concept by top ecosystems have significantly weakened the public’s perception of the Metaverse.

Metaverse Social: Old Decline, New Opportunities Await

Compared to immersive gaming, Metaverse-style virtual socialization in 2025 shows little remarkable progress, mainly reflecting on new directions amid ongoing reflection. Early players have either ceased operations or are struggling to transform.

Meta, as a flagship platform, adjusted its strategy gradually in 2023-2024, no longer developing VR social applications in isolation but attempting to connect its Metaverse social products with Facebook, Instagram, and other existing large user platforms.

However, Horizon Worlds under Meta has struggled, with fewer than 200,000 monthly active users, negligible compared to Facebook’s hundreds of millions. Meta began opening Horizon Worlds to mobile and web at the end of 2024 to lower barriers and expand the user base, claiming a fourfold increase in mobile users within a year. Yet, as a platform mainly relying on VR devices, Horizon’s user adoption remains limited, far from explosive growth.

Meta’s CTO admitted at Connect 2025 that the company needs to demonstrate that Metaverse social can retain enough users and generate sustainable revenue; otherwise, huge investments will be hard to justify. To this end, Meta is increasing AI-generated content and NPCs to enrich Horizon, and emphasizing integration with real-world social networks to reduce user acquisition costs.

Other emerging virtual social platforms show a mixed picture. VRChat, driven by its core community, maintained steady growth, with a peak concurrent user count exceeding 130,000 during New Year 2025, reflecting its vitality as an open social platform. User-generated content in markets like Japan also drove over 30% growth in VRChat users from 2024 to 2025.

In contrast, Rec Room, once valued at $3.5 billion, faced growth bottlenecks and announced layoffs of over half in August 2025. Early on, Rec Room was favored by capital for its cross-platform UGC and creator economy, but as it expanded into mobile and consoles, low-quality content flooded in, and the quality of the creator ecosystem failed to keep pace, leading to lower user retention and revenue. Co-founder admitted that mobile and console users find it hard to create engaging content, and efforts like AI creation tools have not yet paid off.

New explorations in 2025 include AI-driven virtual social experiences, such as AI companions in VR chat rooms or GPT-generated personalized virtual spaces. These innovations are still experimental but point toward an evolution of Metaverse social: smarter environments, emotionally interactive virtual characters, and closer integration with real-world content.

Overall, 2025’s Metaverse social is in a low tide adjustment phase. The novelty of pure virtual socialization has faded for mainstream users, whose demand is becoming more rational: without high-quality content and genuine social value, virtual spaces will not retain users long-term. The situations of Horizon and Rec Room exemplify this. Industry practitioners now focus on improving content quality and community culture, seeking clever ways to fuse real-world social elements.

Hardware and Spatial Computing: AR Glasses Rise, VR Under Pressure to Transform

2024 is regarded as the “Year One of Spatial Computing,” with several major XR (Extended Reality) hardware launches or efforts reigniting the sector.

The most notable in the first half was Apple’s Vision Pro — a high-end mixed reality headset launched in limited quantities in early 2024 in the US, with gradual expansion in 2025. Priced at $3,499 and with limited capacity, Vision Pro’s sales are modest. Apple CEO Tim Cook admitted that Vision Pro is “not a product for the mass market” and only appeals to early adopters and tech enthusiasts. Nonetheless, Apple continues ecosystem investments in 2025: releasing updates to visionOS and rumors of improved hardware, including upgraded M-series chips and refined headbands.

Beyond high-end, Meta’s Quest series remains dominant in mainstream VR. The Quest 3, released at the end of 2023, has performed well through 2024-2025 holidays, with improved performance and comfort. According to IDC, Meta held about 60.6% of the global AR/VR headset and smart glasses market in the first half of 2025, far ahead of competitors.

Sony’s PlayStation VR2, launched in early 2023, experienced significant price cuts and market repositioning in 2025. With sales only in the millions in its first year, below expectations, Sony reduced the official price by about $150-200 starting March 2025, bringing it down to $399.99, aiming to boost adoption. The price cut led to a sales bump during holidays, with total sales expected to approach 3 million units by the end of 2025. However, compared to Quest’s wireless portability, PS VR2 remains limited by its reliance on a console platform, with a content ecosystem mainly serving core PlayStation users.

Another highlight in 2025 is the rise of consumer-grade smart glasses. Meta’s second-generation Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, introduced in that year, feature integrated displays and basic AR functions. These lightweight AR glasses, without full immersive displays, saw a surge in shipments. IDC reports that global AR/VR headset and smart glasses shipments in 2025 are projected to reach 14.3 million units, up 39.2% year-over-year.

Meta’s Ray-Ban models, favored for their appearance similar to regular sunglasses and practical features like photo-taking and AI, are popular among urban youth. Overall, the XR hardware market in 2025 shows a “two-heads hot, middle-cold” pattern: ultra-high-end Vision Pro sparks innovation but with limited sales; mid- and low-end Quest and smart glasses dominate volume; traditional PC VR, expensive HoloLens 2, Magic Leap 2, and other enterprise AR devices have relatively modest influence, mainly in niche applications.

At Meta Connect 2025, Meta emphasized integrating generative AI into XR, enabling voice-driven scene and object creation, while Apple explores combining Vision Pro with AI assistants and more natural human-computer interaction. This indicates that AI+XR will become a new investment hotspot in 2026. Industry collaboration and standards are also accelerating: OpenXR support expands, with different brands’ headsets gradually achieving content and accessory compatibility, and companies like Microsoft and Valve preparing new devices.

Notably, XR hardware applications outside the industry are expanding: in 2025, XR solutions in healthcare and education grow significantly, with hospitals adopting VR therapy (e.g., RelieVRx) and schools using AR for teaching, demonstrating XR’s value and paving the way for long-term adoption.

Digital Humans and Virtual Avatars: Tech Upgrades and Commercialization

In 2025, digital identities and virtual humans (avatars) in the Metaverse continue to develop, with many companies offering creation and management services. Notable examples include South Korea’s NAVER Z’s ZEPETO and European startup Ready Player Me (RPM).

By 2025, ZEPETO has over 400 million registered users, with about 20 million active monthly. While not as large as Roblox or Fortnite, it is significant within Metaverse vertical communities. Its user base mainly consists of Gen Z, especially females, who create personalized 3D avatars, wear virtual fashion, and socialize or take photos in various in-app scenes.

In 2025, ZEPETO continues to attract fashion and entertainment brands, including collaborations with Gucci, Dior for limited digital apparel, and virtual fan meetings with K-pop idols. These activities boost platform engagement and help stabilize user numbers after pandemic-related declines. NAVER Z reports that its overall product line, including ZEPETO and sticker tools, maintains about 49.4 million monthly active users, with growth continuing.

Ready Player Me, as a cross-platform avatar creation tool, was acquired by Netflix at the end of 2025, attracting industry attention. Since its founding in 2020, RPM has raised about $72 million from investors like a16z. It allows users to create 3D avatars compatible across multiple virtual worlds, integrated into many games and apps. Before acquisition, over 6,500 developers adopted its SDK, supporting RPM avatars in various products.

Post-acquisition, Netflix plans to leverage RPM’s team and technology to expand its gaming business, enabling users to have unified virtual identities across different games. RPM also announced it will shut down its public standalone avatar service in early 2026 to focus on internal integration.

Meanwhile, social media giant Snapchat, with over 300 million daily active users, is exploring further Metaverse features for Bitmoji, such as testing generative AI applications on avatars and launching Bitmoji fashion stores. Bitmoji allows users to create cartoon avatars of themselves and use them as stickers. Most Snapchat users use Bitmoji for customization.

Meta is also investing in its own avatar ecosystem: in 2025, Meta introduced more realistic “Codec Avatars” in Quest and social apps, allowing cross-platform use on Facebook, Instagram, and Quest. It also launched AI virtual characters endorsed by celebrities in Messenger, aiming to build a comprehensive digital identity system across its social and VR platforms.

Industrial Metaverse: Most Practical, Accelerating Value Realization

Compared to consumer-facing products like games and VR glasses, the industrial and enterprise Metaverse in 2025 has become the most practically meaningful and growth-potential sector. After initial hype, manufacturing, construction, medical training, and other industries have become early adopters of industrial Metaverse technology. Market research indicates that the industrial Metaverse market reached approximately $48.2 billion in 2025, with an expected CAGR of 20.5% from 2025 to 2032, reaching around $600 billion by 2032.

A typical example is NVIDIA’s Omniverse platform, widely used by large enterprises for digital twins and simulation in 2025. Reports show Toyota, TSMC, Foxconn, and other manufacturing giants are using Omniverse to build factory digital twins for optimizing production lines and AI training. The Omniverse ecosystem’s extensive collaborations include deep integrations with industrial software companies like Ansys, Siemens, and Cadence, standardizing data and visualization.

Traditional industrial software vendors like Siemens actively promote the industrial Metaverse concept in 2025. A survey by Siemens and S&P Global found that 81% of global enterprises are using, testing, or planning to implement industrial Metaverse solutions, reflecting high industry attention to digital twins, IoT+AI, and immersive training.

Specific cases include BMW expanding its virtual factory projects, reducing new model production ramp-up time by 30%, and Boeing using HoloLens and digital twins to design complex aircraft parts, claiming a nearly 40% reduction in design errors. In healthcare and training, VR/AR applications mature: in 2025, many US hospitals adopt VR therapies (e.g., RelieVRx) for patient recovery, with 84% of medical professionals believing AR/VR will positively impact the industry.

Additionally, multinational energy companies use VR for hazardous condition training, and logistics firms use AR glasses for warehouse picking, achieving good ROI. For example, a French nuclear power company reports a 20% reduction in new employee accident rates through VR training. Some government-led city digital twin projects, like Singapore’s 3D city model upgrade and Saudi Arabia’s NEOM mega-metaverse sandbox, are also practical results of industrial Metaverse development.

Thus, the industrial Metaverse has largely moved beyond hype, becoming a natural extension of digital transformation. However, challenges remain: incompatible solutions from different vendors, data silos, and concerns over data security and confidentiality slow down adoption. Many applications are still at PoC or small-scale stages, far from full industry-wide deployment.

Cryptocurrency and NFT Metaverse: Heavy Historical Burdens, Difficult to Rebound

After the bubble burst in 2022-2023, the speculative frenzy around NFT virtual land and blockchain games subsided. However, the “core players” in this track have not given up exploring, with new projects and technologies attempting to revive it. Veteran decentralized virtual worlds like Decentraland and The Sandbox continue to operate, but their user activity and peak engagement are nowhere near previous highs.

DappRadar data shows that in Q3 2025, the total NFT transaction volume across all Metaverse projects was about $17 million, with Decentraland’s land sales only $41,600 and 1,113 transactions. Compared to the peak in 2021, where single land sales reached millions of dollars, this is a significant decline. User activity also remains low: in 2022, DappRadar reported Decentraland’s daily active users below 1,000, with only a few hundred to a few thousand online daily, and only major events attracting tens of thousands.

This “ghost town” phenomenon also exists in The Sandbox and other projects. However, project teams try to sustain communities through DAOs and events: Decentraland established a metaverse content fund in 2025, with a DAO allocating $8.2 million to support Art Week, Career Fairs, and other activities to attract creators and enterprises. The Sandbox partnered with Universal Pictures to launch themed virtual zones like “The Walking Dead” IP, attempting to attract new users.

The biggest event in the crypto Metaverse in 2025 was the launch of Yuga Labs’ Otherside. As the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Yuga prepared for three years and officially launched the Otherside virtual world in November 2025, accessible via web without requiring NFTs. On launch day, tens of thousands of players flooded into the new “Koda Nexus” area, creating a rare high-traffic moment for Web3 Metaverse. Yuga also integrated AI world-generation tools into Otherside, allowing users to create 3D game scenes via dialogue, enriching user-generated content.

Compared to other Metaverse paths, ecosystems integrated with cryptocurrencies and NFTs carry heavier historical baggage. During the previous peak, excessive financialization and speculative narratives dominated product promotion and user expectations, ultimately causing many participants to suffer significant financial losses.

As a result, NFT and crypto-based Metaverse ecosystems face greater trust issues among the public. This track struggles to shed the stereotypes of “asset speculation,” “disconnect from real needs,” and “poor experience.” Although some teams are trying to refocus on content and experience, short-term prospects for widespread adoption and trust-building with mainstream users remain extremely challenging. @E0@E0@E0