Beat Saber was the defining game on Quest when it came to the company’s first standalone at launch back in 2019, making the infectious block-slashing rhythm game a real system-seller. Now, Meta says it’s cutting Beat Saber’s online services for Quest 1 later this year.
The Meta-owned studio Beat Games revealed the news via a post on X, maintaining that all multiplayer functionality will be pulled come November 2nd, 2024:
Dear players, to focus our development efforts on our next projects within Beat Saber, we will no longer support Meta Quest 1 as of November 2, 2024. The game will continue to be playable, but Multiplayer functionality will stop and Leaderboards might be phased out in the future. pic.twitter.com/h7Jefa3g75
— Beat Saber (@BeatSaber) May 6, 2024
In an FAQ detailing the move, the studio clarifies it will also stop releasing Beat Saber updates or customer support for the Quest 1 devices.
“If you want to access the PC version of Beat Saber on your Meta Quest 1, you can do so via the Meta Quest Link,” the studio concludes.
Granted, since Beat Saber and all purchased DLC is tied to your Meta account, it is transferable and playable across the company’s family of devices, including Quest 2/3/Pro and and Rift/Rift S—Meta cross-buy included.
This shouldn’t come as any big surprise though, as Meta announced last year it was sunsetting Quest 1, noting that no new apps will be able to offer support for Quest 1 starting on April 30th, 2024.
This comes as the company seems to be winding down support for seemingly everything but Quest 3, as a few notable developers have decided against supporting the 2020-era Quest 2 or 2022-era Quest Pro, including Alien: Rogue Incursion and Batman: Arkham Shadow, both of which are slated to release later this year.
Meanwhile, Meta will soon be licensing Horizon OS (ex-Quest OS) to third-party OEMs ASUS, Lenovo and Xbox, which could be running the same chipset as Quest 3, and possibly the rumored Quest 3 Lite (alternatively known as ‘Quest 3S’) as well.
