Ready at Dawn, the developer of The Order: 1886 and Echo VR, has seemingly been shut down by its parent company Meta.
The news was first reported by Android Central, who claim to have seen an internal staff memo that was sent to employees regarding the matter. The memo reportedly states that Ready at Dawn, which was part of Oculus Studios, has been closed with immediate effect.
The document also allegedly reassures staff that this closure is not indicative of any wider cuts and that the company is still committed to its first-party game development efforts.
Meta is the owner of Reality Labs, formerly Oculus VR, and is well-known in the virtual reality (VR) space for the Meta Quest Platform and its associated products. This includes popular VR devices such as the Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3, which we rank among some of the best VR headsets right now.
Ready at Dawn was originally founded in 2003 and, although initially independent, has always been closely associated with Sony and the PlayStation brand. It developed the PlayStation Portable (PSP) spinoff games Daxter, God of War: Chains of Olympus, and God of War: Ghost of Sparta. It was also behind The Order: 1886, an early PlayStation 4 title that proved to be a serious showcase of the console’s graphical capabilities.
The developer was acquired by Meta in June 2020 following the release of two successful VR exclusive titles: Lone Echo and Echo Arena. After its acquisition, it developed two more VR games: Echo Combat and Lone Echo II. The memo reportedly goes on to encourage staff affected by the layoff to apply to other positions within Meta.
