Wendy’s is Opening a Metaverse Hamburger Shop in ‘Horizon Worlds’

Wendy’s is Opening a Metaverse Hamburger Shop in ‘Horizon Worlds’

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Wendy’s is more than a chain restaurant that serves square-shaped burgers. It’s also a marketing powerhouse that’s known for kicking off the trend of companies openly roasting their competitors (and other people) on Twitter. Now Wendy’s is taking a big first step into VR April 2nd with its upcoming ‘Wendyverse’, which will be hosted on Meta’s Horizon Worlds.

Horizon Worlds is Meta’s social platform for its VR headsets, Quest 2 and Oculus PC. Worlds still in a pretty early state—it’s only currently open to 18+ users in the US & Canada—however it’s already demonstrated its role as a brand engagement vehicle in the short few months after exiting invite-only beta.

Last month, Meta opened a virtual version of the arcade depicted in its Super Bowl Questy advert, which offered up VR users a host of mini-games and avatar costumes to mess around in. Granted, Questy’s was a fictional brand, but it must have been an intentionally appealing usecase of how brands could use Meta’s social VR platform to promote their wares.

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The Wendyverse hype video shows off a very Questy-inspired space that includes its fair share of costumes and mini-games: a type of shuffleboard using a burger, a basketball court with a hamburger-shaped basketball, and a carnival-style darts game using straws and Frosties.

This comes amid Meta’s greater push to incentivize third-party developers to create for Horizon Worlds via a new program that’s offering training and over $500,000 in funding and cash prizes. Much like established social VR platforms like VRChat and Rec Room, Horizon Worlds emphasizes user-generated rooms as a big attraction.

If you’re interested in getting a crack at the Wendyverse, download Horizon Worlds on Quest 2 or Oculus PC and follows these instructions:

  1. Turn over your left wrist and select the Three Line icon from the Personal Menu, and then select the Pin icon (towards the bottom)
  2. Select the Magnifying Glass icon (in the upper right-hand corner)
  3. Use the virtual keyboard to search for “Wendyverse”
  4. Click the picture to travel to the world

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