Where Did the Metaverse Go? A Look at Its Progress in 2024 and What Technology Will Look Like in 2025

In recent years, the concept of the metaverse has been one of the stars of technological discussions, with promises to revolutionize how we connect, work, and entertain ourselves. That utopian vision of richly immersive virtual worlds where people live, shop, work, and interact seemed to be the inevitable future of the internet. However, as 2024 comes to a close, many are left wondering: where did the metaverse go?

Let’s dive into an analysis of what happened with the metaverse in 2024, its achievements and struggles, and, most importantly, what we can expect from this and other technologies in 2025.

The Metaverse in 2024: A Grounded Reality

In 2024, the metaverse wasn’t exactly abandoned, but it did experience a major shift in expectations. After the massive hype between 2020 and 2022, when tech giants like Meta (formerly Facebook), Microsoft, and others invested billions in building immersive virtual realities, many of these projects faced a reality check. The vision of a universal, all-encompassing virtual world proved to be a much greater technical, strategic, and even cultural challenge than anticipated.