Hololive Parent Cover Corp to Shut Down "Holoearth" Metaverse Project Just One Year After Launch

Cover Corp, the management company behind the popular VTuber group Hololive, has announced that its metaverse project "Holoearth" will conclude its service on June 28, 2026. The decision comes just over a year after its official launch in April 2025, leaving fans on social media in a state of shock and disappointment.

Holoearth was a high-stakes flagship project for Cover Corp, marketed as a "new experience in virtual space." The company invested years of development and substantial capital into its creation. Users could explore a vast virtual world using personalized avatars and attend real-time concerts by Hololive talents, leading to high expectations for it to become a next-generation fan community hub. However, following its formal release, the project faced challenges in expanding its content, and industry observers have pointed out that massive maintenance costs were likely putting a significant strain on the company’s management.

While the official announcement did not specify the exact reasons for the shutdown, reports suggest that the project may have resulted in losses totaling billions of yen. Among investors and some fans, the move is being viewed as a pragmatic "cutting of losses" from an unprofitable venture. Conversely, many others are concerned about the company’s future direction, given that this project was a central pillar of Cover Corp’s founding vision.

Reactions on social media have been a mix of grief and scrutiny. While many lamented the loss, saying, "The live shows in Holoearth were an incredible experience" and "I loved the sense of proximity to the talents," others offered harsher critiques. Some suggested the company had "followed the metaverse trend too closely" or noted that "the lack of a mobile version was a significant oversight." The termination of the service after such a short run highlights the inherent difficulties in navigating the cooling metaverse market.

Although some content will continue to be provided until the final service date, the market is now closely watching how Cover Corp will repurpose the technology and intellectual property (IP) cultivated through the Holoearth project in its future business strategies.

The context

Cover Corp is a Japanese technology and entertainment company that manages "Hololive Production," one of the world's most successful Virtual YouTuber (VTuber) agencies. VTubers are content creators who use digital avatars—often in an anime style—that mirror their real-life movements via motion-capture technology. "Holoearth" was the company's ambitious attempt to build a dedicated virtual platform for its massive global fanbase. This shutdown mirrors a broader global trend where many large-scale metaverse initiatives have struggled to achieve sustainability after the initial peak of the "metaverse boom" between 2021 and 2023.