Meta is shutting down Lone Echo & The Order: 1886 developer Ready at Dawn
Meta is set to shut down its first-party development studio Ready At Dawn, the company reportedly looking to slash its Reality Labs division budget by 20% in the coming two years.
Meta had acquired Ready At Dawn in 2020, with their most recent game being 2021’s Lone Echo 2.
The news comes from an internal memo sent to Meta employees by Gio Hunt, VP Oculus Studios, seen by Android Central, though a Meta spokesperson later told them that the cuts were not specifically to “save money”, but so that Oculus Studios and make a “better long-term impact” in VR development. They also stated that this is not a sign of wider layoffs within the division.
This is deeply disappointing news on multiple levels. From a historical perspective, Ready At Dawn was once a PlayStation mainstay, having been founded in 2003 by former Naughty Dog developers and getting their first break with PSP spin-off Daxter. From there they produced a pair of very well received God of War games for PSP, before ramping up in their ambitions with PlayStation 4 exclusive The Order: 1886.
That game, while an incredible technical showcase for the PS4, drew only moderate acclaim with critiques of its heavy use of QTEs, overly familiar cover shooting, and a short runtime – we awarded it a solid 7/10. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the end of the line for Ready At Dawn with PlayStation, and while there were plans for a sequel (the story ended on a transatlantic cliffhanger), the studio had to diversify and find a new direction.
Ready At Dawn latched onto VR gaming just as it was coming to the fore, releasing sci-fi space adventure Lone Echo for Oculus Rift in 2017 and published by Oculus Studios. A Enders Game-like multiplayer mode Echo Arena was also featured, and available as a standalone game.
However, while Meta has increasingly focused on standalone VR with the Meta Quest line of headsets, Ready at Dawn never really made the same jump. Echo Arena was ported to Meta Quest, but when Lone Echo 2 arrived in 2021 it
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