Rec Room — the digital actuality social membership the place you play video games, hand around in the locker room, customise your look, and celebration with associates — is shutting down on its tenth anniversary.
Regardless of reaching over 150 million gamers and providing VR video games like Paintball, Dodgeball, 3D Charades, and Disc Golf — a cumulative 68,000 years have been spent in-game — developer Towards Gravity admitted “we by no means fairly discovered learn how to make Rec Room a sustainably worthwhile enterprise.”
“Our prices at all times ended up overwhelming the income we introduced in,” the workforce stated in a statement. “We spent a very long time looking for a option to make the numbers work. However with the latest shift within the VR market, together with broader headwinds in gaming, the trail to profitability has gotten robust sufficient that we have made the tough choice to close issues down.
“We’re making this choice now, whereas we nonetheless have the power to wind issues down thoughtfully and do proper by the individuals who constructed this with us,” the workforce added.
Because of this from June 1, you will not be capable of log into or play Rec Room, the web site will go offline, and any on-line companies associated to the sport will now not be out there. Consequently, from right here on in nobody could make a brand new account, you’ll be able to’t add any new associates, and all premium memberships have been prolonged to June 1. Partnered content material creators will even cease accepting new registrations from Could 1.
Maybe most notably of all of the adjustments, customers can now not create monetized user-generated content material, comparable to room stock gadgets, consumables, currencies, and avatar gadgets. After March Room Rewards exit in April, there will be no additional Room Reward funds, and from Could 1, you will not be capable of buy tokens or redeem reward playing cards for tokens. Creators will be capable of acquire any previously-earned tokens till Could 18.
“This f***ing sucks, man,” wrote one sad fan. “I’ve had a number of MMOs and on-line video games I loved shut down, so I understand how a lot it sucks. It is gotta be even worse for a purely social expertise like Rec Room.”
“Unhappy, however given its entire gimmick was ‘Roblox for VR’, the writing was on the wall as quickly as Roblox added VR assist, in addition to the stagnation of that medium normally,” added another person.
Again in August 2025, Rec Room was compelled to put off round half its workforce, however said on the time that even when “nothing concerning the enterprise modified or improved, our runway would most likely carry us into 2029.” It additionally stated on the time that in July 2025, its user-generated content material income was “the very best it is ever been,” up 70% year-over-year. Now, nonetheless, it appears that evidently that 2029 projection was unduly optimistic.
“On behalf of the workforce we’d prefer to thanks for being part of the Rec Room neighborhood and serving to us create a enjoyable and welcoming place for gamers from all walks of life over the previous ~10 years,” the workforce concluded. “Your boundless creativity and enthusiasm has been a supply of nice inspiration and pleasure. We want we may have discovered a option to hold issues rolling, however sadly that is the top of the street.”
As a final thanks to the hundreds of thousands of gamers which have loved the sport over the past decade, Rec Room is discounting all first-party content material in all shops by 80%, and a few premium-only options like avatar gadgets will likely be free. You will additionally be capable of obtain all of your images and acquire a super-cute last report card as a memento of your avatar — you’ll be able to find out how on the official website.
Sadly, creators cannot obtain a working copy of their rooms as with out their servers, they will not work, however you’ll be able to obtain your room and invention information must you wish to recreate the room in Unity, for instance.
Whereas the social mini-game expertise appears as well-liked as ever going by Roblox’s success, VR total has taken a little bit of a beating. In January, Meta laid off round 10% of employees at its Actuality Labs division as a part of sweeping cuts set to have an effect on greater than 1,000 folks. This consists of the closure of quite a few VR-first studios, comparable to Twisted Pixel, the studio behind Deadpool VR, Resident Evil 4 VR developer Armature Studio, and Asgard’s Wrath maker, Sanzaru Video games.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, in addition to a critic, columnist, and advisor with 15+ years expertise working with a number of the world’s greatest gaming websites and publications. She’s additionally a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually Excessive Chaos. Discover her at BlueSky.