Most would not think of 2022 as a particularly good year for those involved in the business of metaverses.

It was a period in which Meta’s Reality Labs division lost $13.72 billion, followed by another $3.99 billion in first quarter of 2023. The jobs of staff in that unit now appear under threat. Horizon Worlds — Meta’s virtual realm — has struggled to generate any kind of traction, although it is responsible for some pretty memorable memes.

Meta is by no means the only company to have been swept up in the metaverse craze, but it’s bet on the concept was so large, and the apparent failure of that bet so damaging, that many are ready to write the idea of virtual, interoperable worlds off entirely.

Yet for Improbable, an eleven-year-old British gaming company that has been through …