Rec Room Alternatives in 2026: Where to Hang Out After Rec Room Shut Down

Rec Room shut down on June 1, 2026, after ten years. The best Rec Room alternatives depend on what you used it for: VRChat is the closest place to hang out in VR, Roblox is the pick if you liked making and playing games, Act Two is a new home built for Rec Room creators, Gorilla Tag covers the quick VR games with friends, and Glint is for people who mostly miss having a room of their own to hang out in with friends, without a headset.

Full disclosure: I make Glint, one of the picks below. It isn’t a VR game and it doesn’t have paintball, so I’ll say plainly where it fits and where something else is the better choice.

What happened to Rec Room?

Rec Room announced on March 30, 2026 that it would shut down, and it closed for good on June 1, 2026 at noon Pacific time. In its own words, “we never quite figured out how to make Rec Room a sustainably profitable business.” More than 150 million people played it over ten years, on Quest, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC and phones, and the company had once been valued at $3.5 billion.

The shutdown came in steps. New accounts, friend requests and subscriptions stopped right after the announcement, token purchases and gift cards ended on May 1, and the servers and rec.net went offline on June 1.

Can you still get your Rec Room rooms and photos?

Not anymore. Before the shutdown, players could download their photos and a “final report card” with their avatar, name and bio, and creators could export their rooms and inventions from the Steam PC version as files to rebuild elsewhere. Those downloads ended with the servers on June 1. If you exported your rooms in time, Act Two (below) can import them.

What are the best Rec Room alternatives at a glance?

Alternative	Price	Where it runs	Best for
VRChat	Free, optional VRChat Plus	PC, PC VR, Quest, Pico, Android, iPhone	Hanging out in VR with avatars
Roblox	Free	PC, Mac, Xbox, PlayStation, phones, Quest	Making and playing games
Act Two	Free, early open alpha	Early access, VR planned	Rec Room creators bringing their rooms
Gorilla Tag	Free	Quest, PC VR	Quick, active VR games with friends
Glint	Free	Any browser, iPhone app coming	A cozy room of your own to hang out in

Which Rec Room alternative is closest to Rec Room?

VRChat

VRChat is the closest thing to Rec Room’s social side: thousands of worlds made by players, custom avatars, voice chat and big communities that meet up every night. It’s free, with an optional VRChat Plus subscription for extras. It runs on PC, in PC VR and on Quest headsets, and since October 2025 also on Android and iPhone, so friends without a headset can join.

It’s more open and less kid focused than Rec Room was, and finding a good world takes some exploring. If you mostly went to Rec Room to hang out with people in VR, start here.

Which is best if you liked making games in Rec Room?

Roblox

If your favorite part of Rec Room was the Maker Pen and building games for others to play, Roblox is the biggest place to keep doing that. It’s free, it has proper scripting and building tools, and it runs nearly everywhere: PC, Mac, Xbox, PlayStation, phones and Quest headsets. Most of its players are on flat screens rather than in VR, so it feels more like a game platform than a hangout.

Is there a new home for Rec Room creators?

Act Two

Act Two is a new platform from Landon Voss, who led product strategy at Rec Room until late 2025. It went into open alpha in June 2026, and its headline feature is importing the rooms you exported from Rec Room so you can publish them again. It’s early: expect bugs, and VR support is planned but not there yet. If you built a lot in Rec Room and exported it in time, it’s worth joining their Discord and following along.

Which VR games feel like Rec Room’s games with friends?

Gorilla Tag

A lot of Rec Room was quick games with friends: paintball, laser tag, dodgeball. Gorilla Tag scratches the same itch in a different way. It’s free on Quest and PC VR, you move by swinging your arms, and rounds of tag with friends are short and chaotic in the best way.

What about Horizon Worlds?

Meta took Horizon Worlds off Quest headsets on June 15, 2026. It now lives in the Meta Horizon app on iPhone and Android, so it’s no longer an option if you want to hang out in VR.

What if you mostly hung out in your room with friends?

For a lot of people, Rec Room was less about the games and more about having a place: your dorm room, decorated your way, where friends showed up after school to talk.

Glint

Glint is built for exactly that, without a headset. You build a room tile by tile, decorate it with illustrated stickers like sofas, lamps, plants and sleeping cats, and hang out in it with friends over voice, video and chat, with messages popping up as bubbles over your heads. You can walk your avatar around with W A S D, watch videos together in sync, and the room stays exactly how you left it for next time.

Glint is free to hang out in; we only earn from optional sticker series. It runs in any browser on a computer or phone, and an iPhone app is on its way. You can try a room without signing up, or build your own room and send friends the link.

What it doesn’t have: VR, games like paintball, or Rec Room’s huge public lobbies. It’s for you and your friends, not for meeting thousands of strangers.

Frequently asked questions

When did Rec Room shut down? Rec Room shut down on June 1, 2026 at noon Pacific time. The closure was announced on March 30, 2026.

Why did Rec Room shut down? Rec Room said it never figured out how to make the game a sustainably profitable business, even with more than 150 million players over ten years.

What is the closest game to Rec Room? VRChat, for hanging out in VR with friends, and Roblox, for making and playing games.

Can I still play Rec Room? No. The servers and rec.net went offline on June 1, 2026, and the game no longer works.

What can I play with friends without a VR headset? Roblox works on almost any device, VRChat now runs on phones, and Glint runs in any browser. For more ideas, see our guides to games like Habbo Hotel, games like Club Penguin for adults and free Gather alternatives.