Highlights
- Meta has closed Ready At Dawn, known for games like The Order: 1886.
- Despite the closure, Meta remains committed to VR development, encouraging former devs to apply within Oculus Studios.
- The closure adds to 2024’s list of game studio closures, raising concerns about industry stability.
As a gamer with over two decades of gaming under my belt, I can’t help but feel a pang of nostalgia and sadness upon hearing about the closure of Ready At Dawn, the brilliant minds behind some of my all-time favorite games like The Order: 1886 and the Lone Echo series.
A recent update discloses that the developer behind ‘The Order: 1886’, known as Ready At Dawn, has closed its doors. Throughout its 21-year existence, this studio not only produced captivating VR narrative games like the ‘Lone Echo’ series, but also played a significant role in creating some of the PlayStation Portable’s top-rated titles, including ‘Daxter’, ‘God of War: Chains of Olympus’, and ‘God of War: Ghost of Sparta’.
Established by former Naughty Dog employees in 2003, Ready At Dawn collaborated with Sony PlayStation for multiple years as a second-party studio, with their final joint project being the visually stunning 2015 release, “The Order: 1886”. The studio also experimented with “Deformers”, an independently developed multiplayer game launched in 2017, but it achieved limited success both critically and commercially. In a surprising move, Meta purchased Ready At Dawn in June 2020 to strengthen their team of VR development studios under the Reality Labs brand.
After their recent release of “Lone Echo 2”, a sequel to their 2017 acclaimed sci-fi narrative game, for PC on Oculus and Rift platforms, Ready At Dawn has faced closure. Regrettably, Meta has decided to shut down Ready At Dawn, effective immediately. A Meta spokesperson stated that this decision aims to help Oculus Studios have a more significant influence on VR development in the future. The company also mentioned that Reality Labs, Meta’s division, needs to stay within its reduced financial limits, as it has reportedly reduced short-term funding by 20% last month.
Meta Says It’s Still Confident in VR Despite Ready At Dawn Closure
Meta made it clear that Ready At Dawn’s shutdown doesn’t reflect a lack of faith in VR development from their end, and they remain dedicated to their VR platforms. However, this unfortunate news has disheartened fans of Ready At Dawn’s games, particularly those anticipating new titles in the Lone Echo series. This closure is one more addition to the list of game studios closing or undergoing mass layoffs in 2024. Fortunately, Meta has encouraged ex-Ready At Dawn employees to apply within Oculus Studios, hoping to preserve as much talent as possible.
Predicting the exact number of studios that might close and layoffs in the video game industry following 2020’s surge in hiring is challenging. However, the closure of a well-known studio like Ready At Dawn serves as a warning sign. I hope the impacted employees can quickly find new opportunities. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that we will ever see the long-awaited sequel to The Order: 1886 now.
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2024-08-08 01:43