Meta-owned studio Ready At Dawn underwent a “reorganization” to meet Reality Labs’ new budget constraint… which means a shutdown.

A recent report revealed that Ready At Dawn, the developer behind The Order: 1886, has unfortunately been shut down by Meta. During its 21-year history, Ready At Dawn has not only worked on immersive VR narrative titles such as the Lone Echo series but has also developed a handful of the PlayStation Portable’s (PSP) most acclaimed games, such as Daxter, God of War: Chains of Olympus and God of War: Ghost of Sparta.

Founded in 2003 by ex-Naughty Dog employees, Ready At Dawn worked with PlayStation as an outsider for several years. The duo’s last work together was 2015’s graphically stunning atmospheric steampunk shooter The Order: 1886. In 2017, the studio also tried its hand at an independently created multiplayer project, Deformers. However, it had little critical and commercial success. In June 2020, Meta surprisingly acquired Ready At Dawn to bolster the company’s VR development team under the Reality Labs umbrella.

As reported by Android Central, Ready At Dawn studio has closed its doors.

The reason: Meta has reportedly decided to adjust the budget of its Reality Labs division to improve the long-term sustainability of its virtual reality business. For the last four years, the team has devoted itself entirely to developing virtual reality games.

After the release of Lone Echo and Echo Arena in 2017, two titles that are regarded as milestones in the genre for their immersive storytelling and innovative mechanics, Meta has pounced on them. A year later, Lone Echo 2 was released, a work that improved on its predecessor but was severely limited in its impact due to its Oculus exclusivity. Although Ready At Dawn has been closed, it should be added that Meta has confirmed that it will try to transfer employees to other Oculus studios.

Over 11,000 layoffs in the video game industry (not including The Order: 1886 developers…)

Employees of many video game companies are currently taking a well-earned vacation. But it’s possible that by the time they return, developers will be out of work due to the industry’s current state. According to the Games Industry Layoffs portal, which gathers news about layoffs in the industry, it is estimated that more than 11,400 people were laid off in just eight months of the year! Many publishers such as EA, Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft and many others have started restructuring some video game studios, all in an effort to reduce costs. We can only hope that this frustrating trend ends soon…

Source: Android Central, Games Industry Layoffs