What you need to know
- A new Instant Replay feature is now available in Horizon Worlds, letting players instantly save gameplay footage.
- Instant Replay automatically saves "select gameplay moments" in supported worlds, sending them to the Meta Quest app gallery for review when they occur.
- Meta is also testing a new "Frame Budget Boost" feature to boost performance in Horizon Worlds.
Every gamer has had a "did you see that?" moment. On consoles like the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch, players just have to long-press the share button and the last 30 seconds (or more) of gameplay will be saved, making it easy to share those moments with friends. Now, Meta is testing a similar feature in its Horizon Worlds social app so gamers can spend more time playing and less time recording.
Meta calls the feature Instant Replay and it automatically saves "select moments" from a world when set up by the world's creator. When these moments are captured, they're automatically sent to the gallery on your headset — also accessible via the Meta Quest smartphone app — where you can review and choose if you want to share them.
In Horizon Worlds, any world that supports the new feature will have a new camera icon on the world page. You'll also receive a notification of the supporting feature on your headset when you enter a world that supports Instant Replay. Meta allows players to disable the feature by heading to Settings, General, then Selecting “Off” for Instant Replay in the Horizon Worlds app.
Android Central has reached out to Meta to find out if Instant Replay could appear in the best Meta Quest games, but they did not get back to us in time for publication. We will update the article once we have more information.
Over the years, Meta has significantly improved the gameplay capture experience on Meta Quest headsets. Capturing used to be low resolution and unreliable on the original Oculus Quest but that was improved on the Meta Quest 2. The Meta Quest 3 launched with an option to record gameplay in 16:9 1080p quality.
Late last year, Meta released Casting 2.0 for developers which allowed ultrawide video capture at the expense of some capture performance. This mode is only available in the Meta Quest Developer Hub. Thankfully, some tutorials exist to make it relatively easy to get started.
An automatic capturing feature would be the best new addition yet, as it would mean players wouldn't need to manually start a recording before beginning their gameplay session.
In addition to Instant Replay, Meta is testing out a new "Frame Budget Boost" feature that will be enabled for all worlds automatically and can improve performance in some situations. Meta encourages world creators to review the new tool and see if it makes sense to keep enabled for their worlds.
All of this is part of Meta's push to make Horizon Worlds more accessible and available. The company began expanding Horizon Worlds beyond VR last Fall, and better performance and automatic capture features could help propel the game's popularity among similar apps like Rec Room and Roblox.
The Meta Quest 3 gets better every month with new features and an ever-growing library of must-have VR games.
