Meta launches Horizon Create and Horizon Studio to let users build games with AI prompts

Meta is betting that the next wave of games on its Horizon platform will be written by players, not studios. The company announced two tools that generate playable games from AI prompts: Horizon Create, a mobile app, and Horizon Studio, a browser-based app with finer controls. Both are aimed at filling Horizon with user-made content without requiring users to learn a game engine.

The split between the two products maps to how much control a creator wants. Horizon Create is positioned for phones, where a prompt and a few taps produce something playable. Horizon Studio runs in a browser and exposes more granular settings, presumably for users who want to tune mechanics, assets, or rules beyond what a single prompt returns. Meta has not yet detailed pricing or the full feature set, and the apps are listed as coming to more platforms over time.

The move follows a broader pattern across the industry of putting generative tools directly in front of consumers rather than professional developers. Roblox, Unity, and a clutch of startups have all pushed prompt-to-game features, arguing that the bottleneck for user-generated content has always been authoring skill rather than ideas. Meta's version ties that capability to Horizon, its social layer, which gives generated games an audience and a distribution channel baked in.

For Meta, the strategic logic is straightforward. Horizon has struggled to attract the volume of creators that rival platforms enjoy, and hand-building 3D content is slow and expensive. If a phone prompt can produce a shareable game in minutes, the company gets more inventory, more engagement, and more reasons for users to stay inside its ecosystem. It also creates a pipeline of training data and feedback that Meta can use to improve its generation models.

The obvious risk is quality. Prompt-generated games have historically been shallow, and a flood of disposable titles can bury the genuinely interesting ones. Meta will need curation, ranking, and moderation that work at scale, especially given the social and safety issues that have dogged Horizon in the past. How the company handles that, and whether creators stick around after the novelty fades, is the part worth watching.

Meta has not said when the tools will leave their limited rollout or which devices will get them first. The company also has not explained how it will handle monetization for user-generated games, or whether creators will share revenue. Those details will decide whether Horizon Create and Horizon Studio become a real creator economy or just another prompt toy.