The online experience as we know it is changing rapidly. The real and the virtual will merge as never experienced before and become intertwined. The concept of virtual worlds is not new, but only now has it become both technically feasible and economically interesting, especially for tech giants. This paper explains and discusses the European Union’s approach to virtual worlds, augmented reality and the “Metaverse”. The EU’s objective is to ensure that private incentives to innovate develop freely by embedding from the outset the rules and values that are fundamental to our societies. In this context, interoperability and open standards remain key to this vision. By the same token, enhanced attention from regulators is needed to avoid replicating in the new “virtual world” the problems that have impacted the current online experience. Fortunately, the EU has already modernised its regulatory system for the supervision of very large platforms and gatekeepers with the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act.