Wendy's opens branch in Metas Metaverse

Together with the burger chain Wendy's, Meta is giving a first taste of what the commercialisation of Horizon Worlds could look like.

Since 2 April, visitors to Meta's Horizon Worlds have been able to enter a virtual Wendy's branch. Wendy's is the world's third-largest fast food chain for hamburgers after McDonald's and Burger King and is particularly popular in the USA.

Ready Player Bun: Welcome to the Wendyverse

Wendy's Wendyverse is based on Meta's Horizon technology, similar to how Nike's Nikeland takes place in the Roblox universe. So if you are already travelling in Horizon Worlds, you can access the digital Wendy's Restaurant from there without any additional login or download. The Wendyverse is reserved for Quest 2 users for the time being.

Wendy's Horizon world is divided into two areas: The virtual Wendy's restaurant in the centre of town and an additional basketball court, the BiscuitDome, where users can play basketball with ham hamburgers. In the restaurant and the surrounding areas, there are also hidden Easter eggs relating to the Wendy's brand and various interactive elements.

An ordering service for real food from within VR, as envisaged by McDonald's in its patents, is not mentioned in the announcement. However, users will probably not have to remain completely hungry: There will probably be the opportunity to win vouchers for real Wendy's branches in VR.

Meta activates Horizon creatives

According to Meta, Wendy's is working with Horizon creators for the Wendyverse, i.e. people outside Meta who use the tools provided by Meta to build their own VR worlds - for a fee or just for the fun of it. In this context, Meta wants to develop into a metaverse marketplace and earn money as an infrastructure provider in possible future transactions.

Horizon Worlds has been available to VR users from Canada and the USA since the end of 2021. It is not yet known when the digital world will open its doors worldwide. Meta is also planning to expand Horizon Worlds to smartphones.

The company's other Metaverse building blocks are the virtual living room Horizon Home, the coworking app Horizon Workrooms and the event app Horizon Venues.

Source: Mixed